I love food. I’m absolutely crazy about it. Our deranged relationship is like Fatal Attraction, and I’m batshit mental Glenn Close. Seriously, if you asked me to choose between food and my kids, I’d need time to think about it.

The only downside to this obsession is that, in recent years, those lazy lunches, cheeseburgers, KFC and juicy rare steaks have developed an uncharitable habit of sticking to my ribs.

So, I was looking forward to some tips on shifting my belly from the The Men Who Made Us Thin (BBC2,Thursday, 8pm).

Only, according to this fascinating and extremely well researched show, I may as well get used to the extra padding. Experts lined up to explain that gimmicky diets will only deliver a short-term effect. Any weight I lose will eventually pile back on, because the “multi-billion pound” diet industry is run by money-grabbing charlatans, eager to exploit a world filled with insecure and gullible people by selling them empty hope.

The show pointed out that some of the biggest dieting companies in the world are owned by food companies: Slimfast by Unilever and Jenny Craig by Nestlé, for example.

It also put Pierre Dukan and WeightWatchers on the spot and neither were convincing that their methods would deliver long-term results, although they both made one salient point. It’s down to us to change. The best way to lose a few pounds is to eat less food, drink less booze and do some exercise, not look for a miracle cure. But that diet really is for suckers, right?