Fat Brits should be more like Mick Jagger – you don’t see a 20st Rolling Stone

HOW did the country that produced Mick Jagger ever come to have an obesity crisis?

Jamie Oliver is usually wheeled out for some well-intentioned finger-wagging whenever there is another bout of hand-wringing about our nation’s ever-expanding waistline.

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But Mick, 74, has a 28in waistline.

And Jamie Oliver has not had a 28in waistline since he was 12.

Government ministers should be begging Jagger to come to Downing Street to learn all he knows about nutrition and exercise.

The media should be quizzing Mick for his reflections on current levels of sugar in biscuits and chocolate.

And all of us should be looking at Mick and marvelling at how fit an elderly gent can be.

I saw the Rolling Stones perform twice this week at the London Stadium and Jagger was a leaping, bounding, skipping, run-ning, jumping, jaw-dropping revelation.

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And fuelled by nothing stronger than a bowl of pasta, he kept it up for two hours.

We learned this week that half the country will be dangerously overweight by 2045. Only half? Sounds optimistic to me.

But leading the band which once epitomised sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll — and the debauched history of the Stones is etched deeply into the corrugated faces of Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood — is the man who can teach us all we need to know about staying fit.

Unlike Mick, we don’t have to take up yoga, ballet and kickboxing — but like him, we do have to think about getting our blood pumping every day of our lives.

And unlike Jagger, we do not have to start every day with a smoothie — but we do have to think more about what we are putting into our bodies.

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Few of us could ever hope to follow Jagger’s punishing fitness regime, working out for hours most days of the week under the watchful eye of personal trainer Torje Eike.

We don’t have the time, money or indeed fitness levels to keep up with this great-grandfather.

But by having Mick Jagger as a role model, every one of us can be healthier than we are — slimmer, fitter and ready to rock ’n’ roll.

The key to Jagger’s fitness is that everything counts.

If you put good food into your body or if you eat rubbish.

If you make regular demands on your body or just reach for the TV remote.

Jagger gets mocked for his action-packed love life (at 73, he had a son with 29-year-old ballerina Melanie Hamrick) and for his laughter lines — nothing is that funny, Mick!

But if you saw Jagger bouncing about like a 19-year-old this week, then you could not help but take him seriously.

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And want a slice of whatever he is having.

So the next time the nation has a panic attack about how fat we are becoming, we need to get Jagger on the case.

For — at the risk of being impolite — when did you ever see Jamie Oliver looking even remotely slim?

But Mick Jagger is still dancing like it is 1969.

And you never see a fat Rolling Stone.

TRIUMPH OF ROYAL WEDDING

IT was such a glorious day in Windsor last Saturday that you would think even the hardest of hearts would soften at the sight of young love framed by pomp, pageantry and that cloudless blue sky.

But the moaning anti-monarchy minnies are always with us.

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“Proof again that GB is an infantilised, escapist nation,” sneered Ugandan-born, Oxford-educated commentator Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, 68.

Meanwhile, in Wales, Oxfam apologised if a modest royal wedding display in Oxfam’s Aberystwyth shop – Meghan and Harry face masks and some Union Flag bunting – had “caused upset”.

But I was on the Long Walk in Windsor with those cheering crowds last Saturday, and I have never felt such a feeling of national unity.

The monarchy exists solely with the blessing of the British people.

We can divest ourselves of it at any time – as so many countries have ditched their royal families over the past few centuries.

But if you stood among those crowds on the Long Walk – who came from every creed, class, race and religion on the planet – then you would believe that the future of the Royal Family is assured for the next 100 years.

Anyone dreaming of a republican paradise should not hold their breath.

YOU'RE STILL STUNNING JADA

JADA PINKETT SMITH has revealed she wears a turban because she is suffering from alopecia, which makes your hair fall out.

Jada will be an inspiration to anyone suffering from the condition.

Because with or without her hair, Jada still looks beautiful.

A BIT ON THE SIDE?

BUCK-TOOTHED Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho is best remembered for two great performances – lobbing David Seaman’s ponytail in the 2002 World Cup and scoring eight times in one night with dancer Lisa Collins.

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One of these performances earned him the nickname “Pneumatic Drill”. And it wasn’t lobbing David Seaman.

You might think that at 38, Ronaldinho’s pneumatic drill was getting a bit rusty, but in August he is to “wed” both his girlfriends, Beatriz Souza and Priscilla Coelho, in a joint ceremony.

More three-in-one oil, darling?

POOR TASTE

THE Labour Party has suspended local party representative Ian McKenzie for saying that Islamic State would behead Labour’s Emily Thornberry rather than using her as a sex slave.

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McKenzie, chairman of the Lewisham East constituency, does not deny his crass comments, although some suggest they are being used by his opponents on Labour’s hard Left to discredit him.

It sounds like he is doing a good job of discrediting himself.

VIOLETTE'S A HEROINE, MR SNOW

HOW stark-raving mad that TV historian Dan Snow feels he has to lie to his daughters that women flew Spitfires in World War Two so they feel free to “follow their dreams”.

“My daughter was walking down rows and rows and rows of these Spitfire racers and she was going, ‘Boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy’,” says Snow.

So to protect his six-year-old daughter from what he calls “the grim realities of pre-20th century gender relations”, Snow told her that some women also flew Spitfires in combat.

And when I read of Snow’s bizarre lie, I thought of Violette Szabo, who was parachuted twice into Nazi-occupied Europe during World War Two to aid the French Resistance.

On her second mission she was captured, tortured by the Gestapo and executed at Ravensbruck concentration camp in 1945.

She was 23.

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Dan Snow has apparently never heard of Violette Szabo – because if he had, then he could surely have told his daughters about her.

But many readers will know her incredible story from the film Carve Her Name With Pride.

Violette was the working-class daughter of a French mother and a British father.

She fell in love with a French Foreign Legion soldier of Hungarian descent called Etienne Szabo, who was killed in 1942 at El Alamein.

Violette, who spoke fluent French, trained as a special-operations field agent to fight the Nazis.

The torments she suffered before her death are beyond our imagination and her courage is at least the equal of any man who fought in World War Two – and I speak as the proud son of a Royal Naval Commando who won the Distinguished Service Medal.

Educate yourself about Violette Szabo, Mr Snow.

Then tell your daughters about her.

FLOGGING A DEAD WOOKIEE

WE all grew up as Star Wars fans but now it feels like there is always a new movie or spin-off coming out.

The Last Jedi was only last year and this week sees the release of Han Solo’s back story, Solo.

 

Talk about flogging a dead Wookiee.

When Katy Perry is taking to the stage in a C-3PO mini-dress, the exploitation of the Star Wars franchise has possibly gone too far.

We’re doomed, Katy. Doomed. Doomed.