It's official, we're a nation of fatties. In fact we've been lolling around for years now, ever since the rich boys' club the OECD, based in the skinny French capital, set the parameters of who's fat and who's not just over six years ago.

Under their yardstick of Body Mass Index, or the BMI, our very own rugger icon Ritchie McCaw's obese, yes not fat, but obese. And there are a number of others in the team who're in that category while most of the rest of them are just plain fat.

The BMI's a combination of height verses weight and you can find out how fat you are, because most of you will fall into that category, by checking it out on line with a Body Mass Index calculator.

There's little wonder then why God's Own's considered the third fattest country on the planet, after the burger and french fried fuelled United States and Mexico.

Having the biggest Pacific Island population won't help our statistics, given they genuinely believe big is beautiful. Obesity's seen as a mark of beauty, prestige, good health, wealth and high social ranking.

Having said all of that though, obesity of course isn't healthy, it leads to all sort of problems not the least diabetes and a drain on the public health purse. Anything that can be done to keep us in reasonable shape, and that's not necessarily measured by the BMI, has got to be a good thing.

It's something of an irony though that it's this Government that's now clamping down on fatties, starting with pregnant women and through to the school gate. One of the first acts National did on taking office was to remove the requirement of school tuck shops to sell healthy food, which outlawed pies, chippies, sugary soft drinks and lollies.

Driving it was the then Education Minister Anne Tolley, who herself knows what it's like to be overweight, once undergoing stomach stapling to trim down. She declared at the time it wasn't a teachers' responsibility to act as food police, it's about changing behaviour, and that starts in the home.

Under their new scheme kids will be monitored more closely to see if they're at risk, and if they are, their families will be given nutritional and most importantly, physical activity advice.

Getting them out from behind the computer screens and on to the playing fields though will be easier said than done.