American society is pyramid shaped - let us be careful our own does not become so. Throughout history, the rich have been fat and the poor thin. In the past 30 years, that has changed because there has been a revolution in education. The upper, middle and skilled working classes are interested in health and have learnt how to stay thin. But those who have remained immune to the information bombarded at them about the need for fibre and fresh fruit have continued to eat pasties and Mars bars.
Simple observation suggests that poorer, less educated people are more prone to obesity.
Photographer Dafydd Jones, who has spent years covering social events in America for Vanity Fair and, latterly, Talk magazine, confirms it. All the elite in Manhattan are pencil thin. Not one of them is fat. The lower down the social scale you go in America, the fatter people are. They have lunch in a restaurant that will allow them to order undressed mixed leaves - which take about 20 minutes of chewing but have no more than 200 calories.