A greater objection to this denial of treatment to fatties on account of their self-inflicted fatness is: where on earth do you stop?

Should NHS dental treatment be denied to women who eat too much chocolate? Should the hugely expensive course of anti-retroviral drugs for HIV be denied to promiscuous homosexuals, or sex tourists recently returned from Pattaya Beach? For that matter, what about women who have dieted rather than gluttonised all their lives, neglecting their calcium intake and so risking osteoporosis in later life?

Fatties surely have just as much right to be treated on the NHS as smokers, binge drinkers, or any other taxpayers. Instead of threatening plump people’s already threatened health by denying them treatment, how about giving them the new bits they need, while encouraging them to lose weight with a little gentle, old-fashioned mockery?

Fatties should of course be free to squeeze out of the closet, their XXXL T-shirts emblazoned with such legends as “Fat and Happy!” “Out, Stout and Proud!” and so forth. What they cannot demand, I think, is the right to be free from teasing, either in the playground or in later life. There is and always will be something innately funny about fat people. They wobble so much, for one thing.

I was once stranded for 24 hours in Houston, self- proclaimed Fat Capital of the World, and I have never seen so many enormously fat people in my life, nor felt such a juvenile but well-nigh irrepressible urge to laugh out loud. The reason they are all so fat is that they drive everywhere, and stuff themselves from dawn till long after dusk with double choc-chip deep fried spicy pepperoni monster pizzas topped with extra cheddar-style cheese, and gallon bargain-buckets of buffalo wings on the side. This is not a dignified way to behave.

But laughing at fatties is no longer encouraged in the Land of the Fat and Home of the Brave. Take their National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. Members recently staged a demonstration in New York, dressed in grass hula skirts, tiaras and flamingo headbands, throwing beach balls around and dancing the “hokey-pokey fat liberation” song. They then solemnly stepped onto scales modified with supportive words like “stunning”, “pretty” and “beautiful” instead of numbers. This is not going to help their condition any more than the mean-spirited health services in east Suffolk.

Obesity is well on the way to becoming the No 1 cause of death in the developed world, which in itself is no joke. In a few decades’ time everywhere will look like Houston, or worse still, the Freedom Paradise resort in Mexico, which boasts reinforced beds, double-width doors, and dining chairs 26in wide but without arms in case they get stuck to diners’ wider-than-26in bottoms when they stand up.

Cindy Sabo, spokeswoman for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, has given Freedom Paradise her seal of approval. Placing herself in the “oversize” category at around 400lb, Sabo recalls “some terrible experiences with some other tourists” on a recent holiday in Hawaii. “Especially some people from Asian countries would walk right up to you on the beach, poke you in the belly and make some rude joke.” What a marvellous image: a crowd of lean little Chinese people gathered around an enormous American woman, poking and prodding her delightedly while she lies there in the Hawaiian sand, huffing and puffing with a self-righteous indignation quite lost on them.

Being overweight is hardly the greatest sin one can commit, pace the doctors and consultants of east Suffolk. But that doesn’t mean obesity is an entirely neutral “lifestyle option” either. It isn’t a cardinal or mortal sin, but a venal one. But obesity does betray self-indulgence, a lack of self-control and a habit of mostly solitary greed.

Despite the protests of fatties that it’s their metabolism that is responsible, or their genes, we all know that those among our friends who incline to porkiness are almost always the ones who chomp their way through an entire packet of Chocolate HobNobs when the rest of us make do with one or two.

A certain mockery, a certain hearty Chaucerian laughter at human weakness and venality, can have a beneficial purpose; although, like shame, it is a social mechanism rather out of fashion. It might not only provoke merriment, but also suggest to its “victims” that perhaps they ought to consider their ways and be wise; or in modern parlance, review their lifestyle choices.

Laughing at fat people might be the first step on the road to them losing weight. And then those sternly Calvinistic medical men of east Suffolk might not have to bother about fitting them with new knees anyway.