If you want to lose weight all over again during another stereotypical January of false starts, you’re in good company.

You can hardly get to the biscuit tin without being nagged to consider the happy, healthy, sober, sugar-free new you.

But I have seen a dystopian vision – completely by accident – that has put me off my breakfast, lunch and dinner for all the wrong reasons.

I’m not talking about Weighing Up The Enemy (Tuesdays, 8pm, Channel 4) in which the charming Dr Christian Jessen gives dieters a little pep-talk and leg-up. Nor The Biggest Loser (Sky Living) which is full of overweight Americans crying, even when Michelle Obama pops in with tips, which will surely change the perception forever that all fat people are jolly.

No: these are a holiday park compared to Fat Families on Sky Living (episodes on catch-up).

The show’s presenter is Steve Miller who is on a mission to “tackle the national obesity problem, one massive family at a time”. Nice of him, you might think, until tuning in shows you the self-styled “Lard Liquidator” is a borderline sociopath, or at least appears one on screen, making you wonder how on earth he got this gig.

If the name doesn’t ring any bells (me neither) imagine a shiny-suited, highlighted Gok Wan, minus the loving encouragement and cheeky camp.

Instead, Steve brings a strangely bullying intimidation to the party.

Steve has been on his own weight loss journey but, it must be said, is no cream puff himself.

However, he makes no bones about his attitude to his subjects… or “chubsters”.

The first time I switched on to Fat Families, I thought I’d stumbled across some medieval torture show or low-rent Game Of Thrones spoof.

Steve had dressed the “fatties” as peasants, forcing them to trudge a muddy path carrying buckets of slop before being tantalised with a slice of pork pie.

Another family, headed up by Belinda and her daughter, single mum Michelle, come from “North Porkshire” (good one, Steve), and tip the scales at a combined 35 stone.

They seem extremely likeable, in spite of, or possibly because of, being labelled “these two porkies” continuously.

But, they do want to lose weight so Steve assembles them on the beach. “When did you last go out for a good old brisk walk?” he asks. “You don’t even REMEMBER!?” wails Steve, his voice trailing into a screech like that of the melting witch in The Wizard of Oz.

Cue Steve’s “shock tactics”, which are in such bad taste I wondered whether this show was a joke. He takes Michelle and Bridget to a graveyard where he, Jacob Marley style, reveals a tombstone engraved with their names and dates of death.

Michelle’s children are summoned to the headstone, and asked how they’d feel if their mum and grandma were killed by their morbid obesity.

Dear... God...

And that is not all. No – there is more penance planned for the fat family’s greedy ways.

First Michelle, then her mother, are shoved in front of a full-length mirror in their undies, while Steve asks them to vocalise their disgust for their bodies. “How would you feel if you had to seduce a man with that?’ Michelle is asked, as she chokes back tears and shame.

To “encourage” them , Steve even makes over their home while they’re out, presumably crying into their chips.

Steve’s makeover entails filling their home with cardboard cut-outs of himself, replacing their sofa with a cross trainer and installing a fridge alarm that screeches “Hey you, wobbly bum, what are you looking for?”

How Steve has not been assaulted with a stick of celery yet, I do not know.

But I for one would happily burn a few calories showing him what I think about his methods, if Sky Living commissions a new series. Preferably by squashing him.

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