WE are quietly killing ourselves with our lazy lifestyle.

According to the latest World Health Organisation report, we are getting fatter by the day. Our couch-potato lives filled with telly and computer games are pushing us even further towards obesity.

Doctors state that only urgent action will combat a global obesity epidemic costing billions through cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

It is almost immoral to consider this bulky state of affairs when Red Cross adverts on TV are nightly urging us to give money to help prevent terrible starvation and suffering in the Third World.

Plainly, our lifestyles are at fault.

Children don't run about outside anymore because we're frightened of them being abducted.

We seldom eat together as families because everyone wants something different and RIGHT NOW -- so, let's get out the microwave and opt for a spot of Ping Cookery.

We exercise infrequently by going to the gym -- then join our pals in the pub on the way home.

And an ideal night in (now that staying in is the new going out), involves a video, an Indian takeway, a block of Cadbury's Wholenut and a large bottle of your favourite tipple.

Worse, we are breeding another generation of potential fatties by allowing our children to eat too much, without enough competitive sport in case they fail and get upset.

As a result, one in four under-tens in this country is obese creating a future when weight will be a costly killer.

Yet it doesn't have to be this way.

Ask Vanessa Hodkinson, for example. This 30- year-old accounts manager from Crewe has just taken a national slimming title by dropping her weight from 21 stone 3lb to 10 stone 6lb.

She was a fat teenager who became an obese adult. It wasn't until her mother had a foot amputated because of weight-induced diabetes that she decided to slim for her own health.

She is crackling with new energy, looks fantastic and says that she feels attractive "for the first time in my life."

As a new convert to healthier eating via WeightWatchers, I can tell you that losing a close relationship with the microwave and enhancing life with non-food treats definitely works.

All it requires is the acceptance that you have to tackle your weight and lifestyle immediately. And then helpful, practical guidance to show that there is a way forward from obesity that offers really rich rewards.

Just ask Vanessa if it works.