Meeting up at the bar or pub? Sharing a drink with friends? These are the times when you notice salty snacks everywhere – potato crisps, corn chips, beer nuts, cashews, pretzels and rice cracker snacks. Salty snacks fly under the radar – no one remembers eating them. Yet they’re a big problem for health and may explain why you can’t lose weight. Here’s my take on them.

The theory behind detox diets is that we can 'cleanse' and 'purify' our body by removing 'wastes' and eliminating 'toxins' (which are never defined). This will supposedly get the bowel working efficiently and rejuvenate the liver, based on the underlying naturopathic concept that your health will improve once your digestive tract is working correctly. How true it all this?

Detox diets and detox 'cleansing' kits are big sellers. They promise lots of things - to purify the body, remove 'wastes' and eliminate 'toxins' (which are never really defined) and rejuvenate the liver. They say they can improve a sluggish digestion, revitalise the skin and boost your energy. Detox has become so accepted in our time-poor, instant world that many people embark on one whenever they've overdone the excesses of life and feel the need to refresh and revitalise. After Christmas is a classic time.

As a nation, Australians are losing the battle of the bulge and it's most evident with our kids. Across all age groups and backgrounds, Australian children are getting fatter.

Having a child with a weight problem needs perseverance and patience. An overweight child will typically not achieve their healthy weight range in anything less than six months and an obese child may be looking at several years before they get there.

A child's excess body fat will not melt away like ‘puppy fat' if it has reached overweight or obese levels (to check how your child's weight rates, go to my Children's Weight Issues Part I). This situation needs action NOW, not when they are ‘older', ‘start school' or the ‘weather warms up'.

Today nutritionists talk of "losing fat" rather than of "losing weight". This is because your aim is to shed body fat, not fluid or lean muscle, as commonly occurs fasting or restrictive fad diets. Sure, the weight comes off, but most of it is fluid which is quickly regained once the diet is over.

This is the text to my slide show which shows you how everyday foods have gradually been upsized over the past ten years and why this is such a problem. I firmly believe that big portion sizes are a real contributor to passive weight gain and the obesity crisis. Here you can read the text and make up your own mind (I think you'll agree).