Who are these people who thought the deep-fried Mars bar was a myth? Dr David Morrison of NHS Greater Glasgow said he had never seen one and didn't know anyone who had tasted one, so he set out to prove it was an urban tall-tale. 'I was certainly surprised by the results,' he said.
Not as surprised as I am that anyone who works in the NHS could have suspected such a thing. I thought the nation's doctors spent much of their working lives desperately trying to stop Scottish hearts exploding like popcorn in a pan.
What Dr Morrison found when he rang 500 of Scotland's chippies was that nearly a quarter of them sold the battered chocolate bar, 10 of them selling between 50 and 200 a week. His study allowed a sight of the enemy in Jack McConnell's fight against Scotland's eating habits. News from the front is not encouraging. One in three of our children is overweight, while one in five is clinically obese.
McConnell's urge to make us live better has been one of his better traits. While it does not have the grand vision of Aneurin Bevan founding the National Health Service or Bevan's wife, Jennie Lee, setting up the Open University, it does show his desire to make a difference. It is also smart politics given how low our expectations are of its success, for it chimes the forlorn bell that we Scots love so much.
While the forces that face McConnell may be terrifying, some small successes have cheered the troops. The astonishment of our southern neighbours was wonderful to behold last week when they discovered that English schools still serve a food banned here: Bernard Matthews's Turkey Twizzlers.
Rather than be outraged that the Twizzlers are more than a fifth fat (and look as if they might have corkscrewed out of an electrocuted turkey's bottom), it was the knowledge English children were eating things that even the Scots disdained that so worried the English press. So no change then from when Samuel Johnson defined oats in his dictionary as 'a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but which in Scotland supports the people'.
This reassuring prick on English assumptions is down to McConnell's initiatives. Children in primary one and two now receive free fruit, while fizzy drinks are being removed from school vending machines.
Yet for McConnell, the playground is territory he controls. Irn-Bru might have been banished, but only as far as the school gate where it hangs about with the deep-fried Mars and the Embassy Regal. The Executive hits out with endless adverts in the hope it will change our perception, but given that the teacake-making Tunnock's just reported increases in domestic sales and Gregg's shares are up 20 per cent on the year, perhaps they are not terribly successful.
More radical action - warning labels on food or even outright bans - would probably be counterproductive. Where do you draw the line? At flumps or at sausage rolls? We'd rebel. Last night, I saw the perfect stocking gift for the smoker: small cards that perfectly mimic the government health warnings on cigarette packets, except these say: 'Smoking makes you hard' and: 'Smoking makes you cool'.
It is the Executive's other effort towards healthy living - getting children to play sports - where greater hope lies. Given the recent exit of Celtic, Rangers and Hearts from European competition, it is also pressing. I didn't notice the Australians eating particularly healthily the last time I was there, and many of them share our blood. One of the truly distressing studies of recent times showed that a majority of Scottish men choose to be overweight because they don't want to appear puny.
There is no doubt McConnell is trying to promote sport in schools. He is also moving to make the routes to school safer, so more children can walk. This is where the battle of our eating habits will be won, getting children to find exercise they enjoy. We may not have the weather but we certainly have the countryside.
Our history of innovation is proud but a little disturbing. The telephone meant we no longer had to walk when we wanted to talk to our friends. Tarmac was a boon to the gut-expanding car. Most recently, we have given the world Grand Theft Auto, the computer game that has little boys everywhere sitting in front of their television sets, busy stealing and running over prostitutes ... but that's another story.
We are good at this stuff. I once interviewed the inventor of the deep-fried Mars. He told me that it was an ongoing project trying out new treats on the youngsters who patronised the now-defunct chippie in Stonehaven. Like all good innovators, he had had both successes and failures. A notable fiasco was the deep-fried Chewit. He hadn't reckoned on the candy turning white hot inside the batter. 'It nearly took the top of the mouth off,' he said. 'I stopped that sharpish, before their mothers heard.'
The First Minister faces a long war. I hope he's feeling fit.
