What we need to hope is that the ASA ruling is the first small step towards proper regulation of academic titles. Well, not regulation — they’re already regulated — but enforcement of those regulations and punishment of those who breach them.

Can’t remember where I saw it, but someone made the interesting point that most GPs don’t have PhDs but are allowed to use the title “Doctor” as long as they’re practising — it’s a job title. Some doctors have actual PhDs, so can call themselves “Doctor” regardless of whether they’re practicing. You’re supposed to use the title to indicate that you once got a doctorate or that you are currently a medical doctor, but not because you were once a medical doctor. Therefore, Lord Owen was taking the piss when he used to call himself “Dr David Owen” before he got the lordship.

Yes, but, again, that’s personal choice. Cook books are cheap and last for decades. Poor people have access to television, which is full of cookery programs.

> Where you live affects what you can buy – there’s a big difference between the food ranges in the Summerston and Bearsden ASDAs, for example

You’ve got the cause and effect back-to-front. The supermarkets have no interest in refusing to sell any particular goods to poor people — they’d rather sell as much as possible, obviously, especially the expensive luxurious things like vanilla pods and saffron and hand-carved sheep’s-cheese sculptures. The reason they don’t sell certain things in certain areas is that no-one buys them. Because they don’t want them. Again, personal choice.

Oh, I agree with that. But if you’re comparing a healthy meal made of fresh ingredients with an unhealthy one that’s a load of mechanically recovered crap, the latter is easier and cheaper. Especially if you don’t know how to cook – which, apparently, is increasingly common across all socioeconomic groups.

Going back to my earlier comment, all these things are part of a bigger picture. Where you live affects what you can buy – there’s a big difference between the food ranges in the Summerston and Bearsden ASDAs, for example, and the only supermarkets in some of the really rough bits are Lidls and Icelands – and certainly in the latter, it’s pretty much all processed crap. Your attitude to food, nutrition and cooking depends on education to an extent; your attitude to cigs and booze is shaped by your family, your peers and your day to day circumstances, etc etc etc.

I agree that if all else were equal, being unhealthy is simply a matter of choice. But I don’t thing all else *is* equal.

But you’re not comparing like with like, so I can prove you wrong by pointing out that a grape is cheaper than a Bic Mac. Chicken nuggets are not a cheap version of roast chicken; they are a different choice of meal.

Depending on your toppings, frozen pizza is not cheaper than home-made pizza. (Tin of tomatoes: 30p; flour and yeast: cheap as buttons; a block of cheese: about 2 quid; and that’ll make the equivalent of about eight 50p frozen pizzas, with enough flour left over to do it all over again three or four times and enough yeast left over to last you a month.)

You may have a bit of a point about about chips, but my point is this: which oven chips are poor people buying? Tesco value? Not as a rule, no. They tend not to buy the cheapest; they buy the ones they like. Because they like them. Cut the cost of fresh spuds by 80%, and they’d still buy the oven chips. And good for them.

I think that it’s part and parcel of an entitlement culture, which places a high value on appearance and immediate gratification. Let’s face it, if a lot of these people could make sensible trade-offs like buying cheap healthy food even though it takes longer to prepare and doesn’t have an attached marketing lifestyle, they would be making better life choices in other areas as well, and wouldn’t be “disadvantaged” in the first place.

I agree with gary and I have to say in my (admittedly quite limited) experience buying fresh fruit for example is a compartively expensive business, even without the Organic markup on much of it.

Another example is decent bread. I like brown bread. The more interesting bits in it the better as far as I’m concerned. But these loaves can often cost three or four times as much as an artifically square, whiter than bleach number with barely any crusts on it does. For someone with a family and little cash that is going to make a big difference eventually.