Leader comment: Happy Easter (eggs)

As a nation, we drink too much, smoke too much, sit on the couch too much, and eat far too much sugar, fat and salt.

For some people, Easter is largely about eating egg-shaped chocolate

We are unhealthy, unfit and over-weight. If Scotland was a person, our GP might very well be having a quiet word.

Over the weekend, Scotland’s children are expected to eat an average of five Easter eggs, breaching the recommended daily intake of sugar by up to 16 times.

Now, depending on the size, five eggs is probably too many. However, it’s not the occasional feast that’s our downfall, but the regular day-in-day-out consumption of junk food.

The problem is that we’ve turned every day of the year into a feast, with the unhelpful assistance of some food manufacturers who stuff food full of ingredients we might not expect.

But attempting to wear a culinary hairshirt all the time – for example by insisting we are perfectly happy to celebrate Easter with a hard-boiled egg when we’re not really – is probably not something many of us can sustain for long.

If we normally eat a healthy diet and take a bit of exercise, the odd blow-out probably won’t do us too much harm. Happy Easter.