Tell the killjoys to get stuffed and eat more than your fill on Friday

TOMORROW and on Friday we will brave the busiest travelling days of the year to be with our families, or they come to us depending on whose turn it is to host. It’s as if the whole country stands up in a mass game of musical chairs, everyone scrambling to land somewhere, somehow at a table with a turkey and a plum pudding.

But come Saturday morning, many of us will be examining our waistlines in the mirror for evidence of overindulgence. Christmas gluttony tends to induce guilt in the best of us and this weekend the newspapers will be on hand preaching penitence and featuring diets designed to redeem us from one mince pie too many.

Of course, at exceptional extremes, excessive eating can inflict obesity, squeeze the heart and play havoc with our blood sugar levels. But is gluttony necessarily such a bad thing?