Catching up with Natalie By Natalie Bridges

I can understand why secret eating has become more prevalent. That's where you hurriedly stuff yummy things into your mouth in private, behind the fridge door or with your head in the cupboard. I think the idea is that if no-one saw you, it didn't happen.

It's like when you eat half a chocolate and then eat the other half later – it didn't count.

But the reason I think this behaviour seems to be on the increase is that we're obsessed with food and what's good, bad, sinful or naughty. Food has distinct categories these days, even class status.

Thin people who eat fancy health foods are somehow better than the rest of us who like to spread our butter thick. Flesh and fat are in the realms of filth and anxiety. Someone isn't automatically a better person simply because they eat less, but that's where our mindset is going.

I'm no nutritionist or have a single seed of expertise in this area, I just go by the trial and error of my own hips and logic that surely everything in moderation is the way forward? It's simple calories in, calories out isn't it? I mean if you take in too many calories and don't exert enough energy to equalise them, you put on weight.

There's clearly an obesity health problem emerging, but I think this is sometimes exacerbated because there's so much focus on food, so much advice, talk and binge dieting fads. The number of people I know who yo-yo like mad because they take on the latest eating craze: juicing, 5:2 (that's where you fast for two days and eat normally the rest). What's next?

A couple of weeks ago you'd have felt like a criminal to scoff a cheeky slice of streaky bacon on a Saturday morning. We were all going to get cancer from it and die, apparently. Fortunately some of the experts came into the media to temper what was a blown-up story about how cured meats are going to kill you. Not so, we just need to apply the common sense logic of moderation.

If I have another person tell me I should watch ‘That Sugar Film', I might just shove my face full of lollies. Sugar is the new evil, along with white bread.

I feel sorry for white bread. It's sustained families for hundreds of years and I still love it and it's been given a bad rap. It's fabulous stuff and doesn't make me feel at all bloated. In fact it makes me feel deeply happy and satisfied. And so do lollies (especially those chewy cola bottles). I just try not to overeat them. I don't always succeed, but hey, there are worse things to worry about in life and enjoyment of food should count for something.