Them

Introduction

It seems as if it would almost be enough of an introduction here to present the oft repeated phrase ‘no man - or woman - is an island’ and to get on with the rest of the chapter. But I will confess that the analogy between such isles and isolated people has never really been one I have bought into. My cousin, for example, once visited a small European island on holiday and they said they have never found it so hard to get time to themselves. The picturesque destination being full to the brim with holidaymakers, locals and other visitors just desperate to make friends and socialise.

Similarly, early neighbours of the family Diot once took the rather drastic step of moving from the mainland, in which both families resided, to a small island sitting some distance off the coast. On hearing from them sometime later, they reported that not only were the people friendlier on their new home (taken as a slight on the Diot family by those within it) but that they probably now had a wider social circle, despite being part of a smaller population.

The annoyingly clever amongst you will be delighted to point out that the phrase is not ‘no man is an islander’ as it is indisputable that some are. However, I still feel the comparison needs some revision. For example, the one thing our emigrant ex-neighbours complained about, in regard to their new home, was that although they were now some way from the mainland, they were still affected by it. Rules and regulations were often determined by those the family felt they had left behind and there was always a sense that those on the island were looking at what those on the continent were doing, despite proudly defending their independence.

Similarly, my cousin reports that whilst on holiday they met a local less enamoured by the tourism industry than others, who complained that life on the islands had become too expensive for locals and that the place had been ‘opened up to insupportable immigration’. The person in question blaming European, rather than local, officials for this turn of events. It would seem, therefore, that everyone is an island.

As we discovered in the previous chapter, we are individual entities whose unique combination of characteristics make us who we are. However, it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, you can never fully escape the influence of others. Whether we like to admit it or not, there are people around us, who impact on how we behave. Some are more obvious than others, but all play a part in unfluencing how we do things.

In this chapter I discuss some of these people and how they may be affecting what you eat. I start by discussing parents, the first and some would say most important people in determining how we behave, including the dietary choices we make.

Parents

Freud, the family accuser, finally allowed the world to blame their parents for many of their limitations, weaknesses, and peculiarities. Such was his influence that one cannot now recline on a chaise lounge, without feeling the urge to open up about a mother’s sharp tongue, or a father’s disinclination to physical contact. However, his focus was a worthy one, as for most of us our parents affect us more than any other individuals. Initially through the genes they pass down and then from the nurturing of us from dependent to independent offspring. And nowhere is this more obvious than in the food that we eat.

It is our parents who first determine when and how often we eat, as well as with whom. It is parents, or carers, who shape preferences and taste. It is them that introduce us to foods in the first place, determining what we consume before we have any ability to choose for ourselves. As we grow, the use of fare for treats and persuasion, punishment and restriction determine how we view foods, throughout our childhood. Parents create an atmosphere and tone around food, as well as setting an example that their ever-observant offspring pick up innately, throughout their formative years. We often hold on to such food patterns all the way into early adulthood and beyond, despite the occasional realisation that the example we have been set may not have been the best.

Unsurprisingly my parents set a culture and climate around food that I would now like to rid myself of. As eating with them has always been a strangely stressful occasion. I will not go into the full details on how much discussion and negotiation it takes to arrange any meal in which they are participants. Suffice to say international peace processes seem to be concluded more swiftly and amicably. You would think it would be enough to agree what time we are all going to eat and what is to be eaten, but it seems that such information needs to be reviewed and rechecked over a period of time leading up to the meal. And occasionally sometime after it has been taken.

The planning of the meal is not the only stress. Once we have moved on to the preparation phrase, we discover a whole new range of tensions. Despite viewing both my parents as people disinclined to work, they seem to create a huge amount of unnecessary labour around every mealtime. I am a fan of the one pot, or one tray, meal. This, I believe, comes from my parents’ insistence for every ingredient in every meal to be cooked and served in its own receptacle. With those receptacles differing for the cooking to the serving.

Every component of each meal prepared in the Diot house would be cooked in its own pot, pan or tray, before being transferred to a separate serving bowl, from which we would be allowed to transfer it to our plates before eating. A meal of just four constituent parts, for the five people of the Diot family, would therefore render 13 vessels for washing. And this is before you have started to consider side plates, glasses (water and wine), separate stirring, serving and eating cutlery and an average of two courses. As you may be able to imagine, a meal at my parents’ house is more a challenge in logistics and temperament, than quality family time.

Unfortunately, such stress is not confined to the home cooked meal. Eating out is equally challenging. I will save you the torture of describing the convoluted means by which we all get to the chosen establishment and will focus on how things are when we arrive. As soon as we enter the restaurant my dad will feel inclined to regale the waiting staff with whatever information he has on our arrangements, or seemingly any other issue in his life, even though it is an irrelevance to them or to the service we will receive. It is not just that this information is shared with the staff; it is more that it is hurled at them in a flurry of words that hit like tidal waves of indistinct noise.

His tension levels rising as we approach the establishment, on entering he will spurt ‘Diot, we booked a table for 7pm’ at the waiting staff and will then continue talking at increasing speed as they show us to our places ‘we originally wanted to book for 730 but couldn’t, so we’re booking for 7 and then people will join us soon, but if they are running late we will order for them as they have to pick up someonefrom thetrainstation andwe don’tknow whentheywill comeinandwe wearehopingthat theywouldbeherebynow butwhatwemightdoisorderforthem andhopetheywillgethereintime forwhenthefoodarrivesdoyouhaveamenuwecanlook?’ So on and so forth. It is as if my dad vomits sentences over them, demonstrating an impressive independence from inhaling during his lengthy monologue.

And this sets the tone for the evening. My parents are incapable of simply ordering food or drinks and then sitting there patiently waiting for them to arrive. They feel the need to check up on every order, worried that it may have been forgotten or mislaid. Such discussions dominate the meal, until eventually my father is persuaded to ask the waiting staff to check where our food, drink or bill is. On occasion, the gap between placing the order and checking on it has barely allowed sufficient time for the staff to turn from the table.

Throughout these moments, my siblings and I spend the entire process trying to translate the rapid indecipherable language my parents are speaking to a form that those with the pen and pad may understand. I have always considered it a wonder that we have all managed to consume the number of calories required to get to our relative sizes. It would have been no surprise if concerned teachers from my primary school had had to quiz my parents as to why we all ran to hide whenever the lunch bell sounded, under the control of a deeply developed Pavlovian tension. Rather, we have fostered a high speed of consumption, desperate to limit exposure to the stress filled mealtimes, along with a reliance on solo eating takeaways or ready meals, in an attempt to constrain the anxiety of food preparation.

Your past may, or may not, be as extreme. But it is undeniable that your food behaviour has been shaped by those who raised you. So, by all means feel free to blame your parents next time you can’t resist that extra cookie or recoil in horror at the nutritious greens on your plate. They certainly could have played a part in determining your food choices. Although, whilst doing so, you should also hold some sympathy for them. Family meals can be a challenge for parents, especially when it comes to the struggle of encouraging children to eat what has been prepared. And it would be churlish to suggest that they are the only family members that have any influence over what we eat. Carry on reading and gain a newfound compassion for those who spent so many years cooking for you and a deeper understanding as to how the other members of your family may have impacted how you eat.

Reader’s writes

Dear Dr Idiot,

I have always thought it important to show faith in children and to involve them in decision making in the home. That is why, even though both of my children are under 10 years of age, I allow them to choose our family meals. We have survived on a diet of bogies and yellow skittles for the last five years, but I am worried that the family acne and bandy legs are signs that we need to include a few more nutrients in our diet. How do I encourage my children to eat more healthily?

Yours weakly

Peter Populist Parent

Dr Idiot replies:

Dear Peter Populist Parent

Maybe try giving them the food they need to eat rather than waiting for them to choose it. Few five-year olds choose broccoli over jelly babies, so you might have to do it for them.

Yours sincerely

Dr Idiot

Families

Those of us who have visited a zoo at feeding time, would be drawn to question the endorsement of the family meal as an aide to both help us eat well and to build harmonious domestic alliances. Such events are not usually the calm congenial affair that those promoting them would have us believe. Rare is it that a household actually sits down to eat together, sharing food, news and opinions in the impossibly convivial atmosphere that family friendly cinema would have us believe. Like me, you may have experienced these mealtimes as taut and stressful occasions, unsure of what food will be served and how others will behave around you. You are not alone in this. Spare a thought for those charged with preparing the food in the first place, who have a trickier task than just sitting and eating politely.

There are few things more stressful than trying to feed a large number of people. Any provider of food is open to the complaints, battles and disagreements of those who feel open enough to criticise the meal lovingly slaved over for their benefit. The crushing feeling of a son, daughter or partner refusing to try a new recipe one hoped would expand the family palate, lingers long enough for one to decide that it would be best to return to the standard, accepted, unadventurous offerings everyone knows will be consumed with little fuss. Because of this, one then faces open criticism and blame for the limited and rigid diets one’s family follow.

This is unfair. Every evening in which you reject takeout, or readymade meals, for home cooked, you open yourself up to the possibility of crushing personal rejection, delivered from those you love most. The agonising wait experienced by a head chef the day after the visit of the most influential critic is one the family cook suffers every evening. It is rare that one can find a meal that satisfies the preferences of four people of varying ages and sexes, but this is something the average home chef must do on a daily basis. As if this was not enough, around it comes the battle of behaviour found at every family table: speaking with mouthfuls, playing with food, negotiations over eating greens, all tackled in an attempt to feed and nurture offspring. The role of provider becomes part prison guard and part psychologist as they try to control and cajole their charges to eat healthily and courteously.

The odds of achieving healthy and happy consumption at all times are not stacked in our favour, as we are fighting against a tide of influences. There is, as Darwin would have us believe, fevered and frenzied competition for resources amongst us all. A theory ably demonstrated by the bringing of food to the Diot table. I have never been confronted by a pack of rabid dogs, but I imagine that they have a similar level of impatience shown by my family when waiting for food. A plate of sausages dropped into the middle of the dining table producing a similar response to that single drop of blood, which does so much to distract piranhas from a leisurely swim. The mere placing of a tray of a lasagne, or bowl of roast potatoes, before us encouraging a mass of frantic grabbing, punching and biting until we were left guarding what food we have acquired.

Such behaviour was complicated further by the presence of leftovers waiting for us in the kitchen. Leftovers that could only be taken once we had emptied plates of our first serving. Those finishing first, being the ones to get an open choice of what, and how much more, they wanted to eat. I subsequently acquired a rapidity for eating that friend’s parents saw as a sign of deprivation. But was actually born of a fear that my siblings would finish everything before I could get second helpings. I believe we, as a family, developed a remarkable ability to withstand extreme oral temperatures as a result. None of us wanting to wait for our food to cool before hastily shovelling it in.

Still now, as an adult, the time for preparation of my food vastly outweighs the time I take to eat it. Even when that preparation only involves dialling a number and paying a delivery driver. Food seldom stays in my mouth long enough to be tasted, under the programmed fear that someone else may take the leftovers. The company I kept during those childhood meals, still influencing how I eat when on my own.

I can imagine that many of you reading this can relate to my experiences. Some may not. But whatever home we come from it seems inevitable that we will be influenced by those with whom we share it. The question becomes, in what way, is this influence to our good to our detriment? Take my test on the way you eat your family meals below, to find out how it might be affecting you.

Dr Idiot gets quizzical

Family meals are a big influence in how and what you eat. Read my exhaustive quiz below that covers all forms of family meals to learn how to improve your mealtime behaviour.

How do you eat breakfast?

The staff lay out a superb buffet of breakfast options. This includes Scottish smoked salmon, imported French croissants and waffles from Brussels. The coffee is freshly ground. We discuss the party season whilst the food is laid before us.
I toast bread and my partner makes tea. Then we sit at the table in the kitchen and eat it whilst we continue our argument from last night about who should do the washing up.
I drink some shower water and finish the biscuit I find in my pocket as I walk to the car.
Do cigarettes count as breakfast?

What do you do for lunch?

I am famished after a morning’s shoot. We toast the partridge we have caught along with anything else we accidentally killed. We then sit down to a fine roast prepared at the talented hands of Baptiste. The man is a genius.
I buy a sandwich from the sandwich van man. He is slightly limited in what he offers but a BLT covers all food groups, so I am happy with that. I take 20 minutes in the staff lounge to eat and stare at the peeling paint on the walls whilst I contemplate the futility of my life.
I have a multipack of crisps in my desk at work and eat a couple whilst I update the sales accounts. Prawn cocktail flavour for starter, roast beef for main.
Does a can of lager count as lunch?

How do you take dinner?

Dinner is a formal affair. Evening dress a must. We gather in the drawing room and have pre-dinner sherry. When the gong is sounded, we enter the dining room, sans sherry of course, it being an offence to take it in. Someone reads grace and we are served soup. After a handful of courses, the men retire to the smoking room, where talk can be a little freer and the ladies return to the lounge, where the fire has been lit.
I pop a supermarket lasagne in the microwave and open a bottle of wine whilst my partner makes a salad. We carefully extract crockery and cutlery from the washing up Jenga mound and eat in the kitchen, catching up on each other’s day. We ignore the washing up standoff.
I pick up a kebab on the way home and either finish it before I arrive or take the remnants to bed.
Do whisky and cigarettes count as dinner?

Mostly 1s

You make time for food. Eating is an event for you and you share it with your family. Good work.

Mostly 2s

You try to allow time in your busy schedule for food. Good effort but you could do better. Try to prepare your own food in the future.

Mostly 3s

The modern curse, try to find time to spend with your family, or try to find a family to spend time with.

Mostly 4s

I doubt you have lived long enough to get to the end of this quiz.

Partners

One of my siblings, on deciding that they had been single for too long, opted for the assistance of certain online dating services. There is no judgement from me on this. It is the modern way and it is my decision not to follow suit, remaining depressingly single as a result. Such services, they initially reported, were very helpful. Their first search throwing up a mass of people who seemed to fit both essential and desirable criteria. Unfortunately, things proved less promising at the point at which my sibling decided to contact the vast number of options laid before them. The majority of those approached either opted not to reply or replied with a request for money to help them raise the funds to ‘come over such that they could be together with their new love’. My sibling, not being the wealthiest of daters, declined to make such an investment. So it was that when they finally received contact from someone who was not asking for a deposit and who seemed genuine, they were willing to overlook the fact that they lived some miles apart. After all, they were in the same country and you do have to make certain compromises for these things to work.

Things progressed well in the early stages of their relationship, which was initially conducted through email, text and phone calls. Even on meeting, both parties felt equally aggrieved at the flattering choice of historical profile photographs, giving them common ground over which they could bond. It was fair to say that at this point the relationship flourished, as many long-distance affairs do, through daily remote contact and weekly meet ups, when both were off work and able to travel.

We, as a family, had great hopes for this blossoming union, which sadly then faulted and died. My sibling did not want to go into too many details over the cause of its demise, simply stating that it takes time to get to know someone and the true person can only remain hidden for so long. The one thing they did discuss, quite openly, was that the partner in question enjoyed, or endured, a rather limited diet. This was something that irked. My sibling had quite clearly detailed a love of food and a hope to meet someone who could cook, when first describing what they were looking for in a relationship. A claim the now ex-partner was happy to make. Alas, as with much on these profiles, it was an assertion that proved to be slightly overplayed. As it soon transpired that their idea of cooking amounted to repeatedly making one dish, which they seemed to live off pretty much all the time. The dish in question being the product of a pan of boiled pasta, tinned tuna, a bag of frozen sweetcorn, and a jar of mayonnaise.

My sibling is no snob and was not unhappy about the ingredients or the recipe itself but grew concerned when it became apparent that this dish was not prepared fresh for their arrival and was rather thrown together every Monday evening in large quantities. It would then sit for the rest of the week on the stove on which the pasta was cooked. The partner only sharing such information when my sibling commented on the tanginess of the dish. A particular type of tartness my sibling had only ever tasted before in fermented products and one seldom welcomed in mayonnaise-based recipes. The proud chef reporting that the sharpness came through as the dish matured. Monday’s tasting proving rather bland in comparison.

It was at this point that my sibling declared that the signature dish they had been benevolently eating on during their visits, would obtain no further support. It may be no coincidence that after adopting such a stance, they felt a definite rise in energy levels and a clearing of the recent rash issues they had been suffering with. This was not the only way in which their health improved. The partner finding the only dish they could cook rejected, turned to the only other option in their limited diet, take away pizza. On the face of it, this seemed a bad option for my sibling, as at the time they had been following a gluten free diet. A recommendation they had accepted from an un-validated magazine quiz, they chanced upon in their health centre whilst waiting for a consultation to discuss their disturbing and persistent rash. Such quizzes have always been a concern to those, like me, who ‘work’ in the diet industry. Nonetheless, the result of this ‘diagnosis’ was that on every subsequent visit to their partner’s they were restricted to picking the toppings off the pizzas, but were unable to help with the base. It was, they conceded, a rather good diet as they only ever ate a small proportion of the meal. Encouraging their weekends to be rather abstemious. Their partner being left to eat the base of each delivery.

Whether for reasons of diet or distance, the relationship did not last. But on returning to the dating scene, my sibling was clear on two things: firstly, that they would use a more established online service, going so far as vowing to avoid free options forever; and secondly that they would find a suitor who was more thoughtful about what they put into their mouth. Insisting on such in their search criteria and profile.

We are often warned ‘be careful what you wish for’ and such it was with my sibling’s new love interest. On the surface things seemed positive. The person in question not only seemed both to enjoy cooking and to be rather good at it, but they also lived closer, such that the couple could spend more time together. It soon became apparent that these positives, although good for the heart emotionally, were not great for it physically. Whereas the previous lover would produce huge quantities of food that my sibling would not want to eat, leaving the partner to finish them off, the new one would buy, source and cook delicious food and then hardly touch it. Beautifully constructed meals with an array of side dishes would be produced, only for my sibling’s new acquaintance to consume barely a mouthful of them. My sibling being rather normal in their inability to ignore delicious food when it is placed in front of them, could not resist their offerings, leading to a quite predictable result. Insofar as it was now their turn to encounter the relationship weight gain, they had seen in their previous partner.

Their experience, although extreme, is not unusual. Differences in alternate partners may not be quite so large for all of us, but it is common for a significant other to influence one’s health, or behaviour. Marriage is a good example, although most long-term partnerships follow a similar pattern, whether making this commitment or not. Many, in the early days of a relationship, or in the build up to a wedding, feel under pressure to lose weight. A temporary state of ‘health’ brought about by the insecurity of the judgemental eye of those closet to you, or the fear that one of the happy couple may not look dangerously malnourished in their wedding album. Once the wedding is done, or the relationship established, it is common for couples to relax and feel less concerned about such physical appearances. They are settled and happy (hopefully) and are comfortable with the thought that there should be no need for them to attract further mates. They are finally able to relax and indulge. The miracle of love overriding any sense of satiety. They are not alone in this. Now supported by their new associate, with food and drink often central to the dynamics of a working relationship, they crave time together eschewing the pursuits that may have kept them more active.

Such shared indulgences normally last a few years, until realisation hits one or both parties. An unkind mirror, the honest description of a recent photo, or the recorded memory of an old wedding video, can shake the married parties, or long-term partners, to reconsider their approach to life. Often this leads to the uptake of a new hobby by both, or perhaps the purchase of a gym membership with special deals for couples. On occasions a new diet regime will be introduced into the marital home or cohabitating property. Just as with the weight gain, the drive to lose it can benefit from the support of those closest to you. Unfortunately for some, this is not always available.

Although such lifestyle changes are normally encouraged for the health of an individual, they can occasionally prove harmful to a couple. Many a time has the more active life received greater welcome by one party than the other. The shared sedentary activities that brought them together, that solidified the relationship, now ejected for pursuits they may not agree upon. Where one may wish to run that marathon, or swim that channel, the other may miss the time they spent watching boxsets and drinking wine together. Where once they shared activities, now their pursuits prove individual and solitary. This may lead to suspicion and mistrust. One partner viewing the other as slothful and gluttonous for not rejecting the behaviour of the past, the other identifying the signs of a midlife crisis, blaming new friends for the gym obsession or regular runs. Strangely enough should things develop far enough, such that the relationship is deemed unfixable, this can once again lead to weight loss, as both parties suffer the stresses of break up and the desire to attract someone new, or weight gain, as the newly found singles turn to food and drink to distract and subdue emotions.

It is clear, therefore, that relationships can play a part in determining the food you eat and the activities you indulge in. Knowing this, perhaps we should take more care when choosing companions. Such important others having an impact on our health and happiness. I may even go one-step further; we might even have to rethink our whole approach to relationships. This might seem extreme to many of you, but if we are really going to maximise the influence of partners for our personal good, it could take some out of the box style thinking.

Dr Idiot thinks outside the box

I wonder if monogamy is to blame for post-marital weight gain. You find your soulmate, you get married, the wedding photos are set in posterity. You can relax, enjoy your Sunday pub lunches, your TV dinners and your evening bottles of wine safe in the knowledge this will not stop you reproducing. If you want to be kept on your toes, join a polygamous community, in which you can never experience the damaging security of a settled supportive relationship. It seems to be a simple exchange of monogamous refuge for slimmer waists, albeit with a greater risk of messed up children and sexually transmitted infections. Nothing comes free in this life and what do the odd groin itch or child psychologist fees matter if it helps you drop a couple of belt notches?

Friends

As with the majority of adolescents, I experienced an odd time during my early teens in which my friends and I were old enough to want to establish our independence, but too young to really do so. We couldn’t work, or drive, buy or rent houses, or stay out beyond nine in the evening. So the only way we found to express our budding individuality was by joining all the other people of our age in the welcoming environment of one of the first fast food restaurants in our town.

These garish plastic playgrounds allowed us to hang out together without the accompaniment of parents or supervisors. The draw of liberation slightly tempered by the limited disposal income we, as thirteen-year-olds, had jingling around our pockets. We became one of numerous groups of similarly aged children attempting to fit increasing numbers of individuals around a table designed for four, on which sat a modest amount of milkshake, soda, chips and varied meat products, along with an inordinate number of straws.

There were rumours that if you wanted to kick start puberty you only had to hang out in these establishments for an hour after school, or during the daylight hours of the weekend. The hormone heavy air encouraging the maturation process to begin. Unsurprisingly this time coincided with some impressive weight gain in all of us. We were, after all, creating a norm that was encouraging such physical change. If you weren’t one of the burger gang, you weren’t accepted. The intake of milk, fried foods and high sugar drinks was encouraged amongst all of us eager to be accepted, until such time that we would go home for tea. A tea that usually involved rejection of whatever had been prepared for us and subsequent family arguments.

Such home tensions mattered little. Our parents were of little interest. We had reached that point in our development in which friends, acquaintances and enemies, those around us of a similar age and persuasion, become all that mattered. Impressing, following, conforming, fitting in, was the most important thing in life. Gone was the adulation and adoration of parents along with the desire to impress the adults in our lives, be they grandparents, aunts, uncles or teachers, with all this replaced by a longing to be accepted by our peers.

How unfortunate that we should change our yardsticks at such an important time. Few share the view that teenagers and adolescents set the kind of example that is best for our children, but during these formative years it is exactly these people whose behaviour guides us most. Even more unfortunate that the decisions one makes during these years can impact on us throughout the rest of our life. Job defining qualifications, sexual awakenings, exposure to drinks, drugs and tobacco arrive in unremitting succession and even the slightest hesitation, or sampling of them, can lead one into the dark recesses of a felonious and harmful adulthood.

The same can be said for diet. It only takes one cool kid; one football captain, netball star, or twenty looking 13-year-old to start gorging themselves on sushi and suddenly the price of raw fish in that area of the country can double over a school term. Similarly, if one social influencer starts rejecting fresh fruit and vegetables, in favour of the delights of the nearest fast-food restaurants, every owner of a takeaway close to the town’s high school is building home extensions or buying new cars.

Some would like to claim that these influences are ones that pass as we mature, but if we’re honest, once the importance of friends becomes ingrained in us, we never quite shake off the need to conform or impress. The people may change from classmates to work colleagues or playground parents, but it matters little. Those with whom we share our lives, become a target for our validation. We want to be liked, to be approved and accepted and we will do what we have to in order to achieve these goals. We choose to indulge or abstain dependent on the current culture of those around us. We are pack animals and we resist moving against the herd, especially when that herd are holding dinner parties and drinks events we would like to be invited to. We want to be included and adapt our behaviour so that we are.

Some might suggest that you are just lucky if you befriend a group that happens to make the right choices. Meet the studious or sporty child by a quirk of fate and they drag you along in their success. But now we have got over the emotional drive so apparent in our hormonal years, we should be able to make rational decisions on those we hang around with. Perhaps now is the time to heed the advice so often given to us as teenagers ‘to choose our friends wisely’. We can select the tea total marathon running vegan over the hard-drinking pizza-loving smoker, we can decide to sit next to the career driven workaholic over the slovenly waster. If we are going to be influenced, we can choose by whom. Dating websites are an industry built on rational decision over emotional choice, we select on key qualities we want, not things that we feel. It is about time we did the same with our friends. Next time you meet someone, don’t waste time chatting to them, just ask them to send you a CV and tell them you will be in touch in three weeks.

Alternatively, if recruiting your friends through a rigorous application process sounds a little too dispassionate, perhaps think about where you go to meet people. You are unlikely to meet the criminal classes in the foreign literature section of an academic bookshop, whilst similarly, those of healthy body and mind don’t generally hang out in illegal bookmakers or smoking dens. Attend the locations frequented by those with the character traits you think you need to improve in. Frequent gyms or spin classes if you need a little friendly encouragement to be more active. Visit the allotments or health food shops if you’d benefit from some peer supported dietary change. After all, if this chapter has taught us (you) anything, it is that we must be careful with whom we spend our time. But we have to recognise that this has a lot to do with where we spend our time. The places we go and the environments we live in are major influences not only on those we meet, but also on how we behave. This is never truer than when it comes to the food that we eat.