Size does matter in weighty affairs

In a delectably nutty debate, Dr Saumya Balsari sizes up smaller chocolate bars in her column.

“They’ve cut me down to size,” mourned the Mars bar. ‘They’ve trimmed and shaved me, they’re going to chuck the choc and now I’m not going to be half the bar I used to be. I believe in yesterday.”

“The future is bright. It’s brown. Small is beautiful,” I said comfortingly.

“If downsizing at work wasn’t depressing enough, now the one thing that makes work and the bad breath of the boss bearable is being downsized,” complained the Snickers bar.

“But haven’t you heard, it’s to tackle obesity. King-sized chocolate bars and extra-large snacks are to be scrapped, and food firms have agreed to phase out "super-sized" portions to battle the problem,” I said. “Manufacturers have, pointed out in their defense though, that their extra-large versions were originally designed to be shared, or at best, eaten over time. They were never to be consumed in a single sitting by one person.”

“If this were true, how many people have you seen sharing their chocolate bars with strangers on the Tube? Or carefully wrapping a half-eaten Snickers bar and putting it away for a bad hair day?” interjected the bar with the owl-rimmed spectacles.

“Be that as it may, as a result of misguidedly gobbling down the bar at one go, one in 10 British six-year-olds is now obese, rising to one in five at the age of 15,” I said sternly.

“Are British parents afraid of the word ‘No’ to their offspring?” asked a belligerent king-size nutra-granny bar that did not want to be named for this interview. ‘Why experiment with half-baked notions on smaller bites just because we are so popular? Why don’t they pick on someone their own size?’

“You’d better get used to the name ‘king-size’ being phased out,” I said sternly.