So the President of Egypt has taken drastic steps to deal with the country’s spiralling obesity problem. 

Egyptians have been cracking jokes on social media after the Egyptian president went on a 20-minute televised rant complaining about the country’s obesity crisis. Authoritarian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi went on his second tirade against obesity in as many months when health minister Hala Zayed presented new numbers on the weight of Egyptians on Saturday.

Interrupting her, he asked, “Why are we doing this to ourselves?”

35 percent of adults – some 19 million people in the country of 100 million – are obese, again the world’s highest rate, as well as 10.2 percent of Egyptian children, or around 3.6 million. Yet again, we are putting political correctness before what is right. Is it right to humour people who are killing themselves and their children with bad diet and total indifference to good health. This is reaching EPIDEMIC proportions in many countries now and something has to be done about it soon.