Encouraging news for all those of you who think you might have been hitting the deep-fried Mars bars a bit too much and could do with losing a foot or two from your waistline.

A recently published report has come up with the interesting, if not entirely surprising revelation that nine out of the ten heaviest (ergo lardiest) people on the planet are from, yes, you guessed it, America.

The Land of the gravely gross and the home of the free lunch.

Fatter than the fattest Scottish Tory?

And what, you might be asking, has any of that got to do with Scotland? Well, bugger all actually, other than a suspicion that Tubbytory MP Brian Monteith may just have been edged out into the No 11 spot. Keep eating the pies, Brian, and better luck next year.

Top of the pile (and no doubt squashing all those beneath) weighing in at a quite magnificent 114 stone and 4lbs was Ms Carol Yager. Put into some kind of context, this is roughly the equivalent of ten average sized men all contained in one distinctly unaverage female frame.

Nice one Carol. Do us a favour and don’t go swimming in the sea off the East Coast though, eh? Quite apart from the scary prospect of seeing you in a bikini, there’s a genuine risk of causing a tidal wave that would swamp the UK.

The only non-American to make it into the top ten (in 9th place) was a Mr Mohamed Naamam from Kenya, breaking the scales at a portly 75 stone and 5lbs.

Hasn’t he heard that the African continent is supposed to be starving? The greedy bastard weighs more than the population of most Somalian villages combined.

Squeezing in at No 10 on the fat-list was Ms Carol Haffner, a positively anorexic 73 stone and 1lb.

So, our advice to all Scots is, take heed and learn the obvious lessons - if you want your children to grow up healthily, for godssake don’t christen them Carol.