"PATIENTS too big to weigh" so ran a report in the Adver last week.

The chief dietician at the Great Western Hospital was quoted as saying: "We need to buy about a dozen sets of heavy duty scales to cater for the growing population of morbidly obese people."

One has to ask who is meant by "we" and what is defined as need.

Consider anyone whose weight registers as over 25 stone is morbidly obese, unless by some chance they happen to be over seven feet three inches tall. One doesn't need new scales to register that fact.

It appears there are 1,100 people being treated for weight problems of whom 50 per cent are classed as morbidly obese. That's 550 people.

The 12 scales, if they are ordered, will mean one set for every 46 persons or fewer than ten persons per scale per day.

Wasteful don't you think? And at £300 a scale it will mean a £3,600 tab to be picked up by the ever suffering taxpayer.

The reason? To deal with eating disorders.

And there's me thinking they were talking about gluttony.

LS

Swindon