In The Aeneid, Virgil writes that “each of us suffers his own destiny”. This is certainly true of my father, who died last month of a heart attack at the age of 63. He died in my arms and so suddenly that he was long gone by the time the ambulance arrived.

Over the course of 15 years, I warned him many times to change his diet, to develop some respect for his health and not to rely too much on pills and doctors to keep himself alive. All fell on deaf ears.

So this is a plea, a plea to anybody who is willing to listen that obesity is a conscious choice and a very poor one.

Fat people should not be treated as yet another multicultural denomination like black people or LGBTs. They are sick and the sick need treatment. They must not be enabled and every attempt to pass themselves off as an oppressed minority should be met with the ridicule it deserves.

My father didn’t need to die so early and if he didn’t have so much fat weighing down his heart and lungs he would still be alive today.

Others might yet escape his fate if only they would take this admonition seriously and start treating the fat as what they really are: sick addicts who need government and perhaps even police intervention to knock off their filthy habit.

Illness and addiction must be eradicated, not tolerated.