I  can’t think of a single occasion in my life when food wasn’t part of a celebration. Our weddings are marked as successes based on the amount of food offered. Is there any greater insult than telling a newly-wed Maltese couple that you had to go to McDonald’s after their wedding because you didn’t get enough to eat? I doubt you’d live to tell the tale if you did.

So great is our love of food and so prevalent is its presence at every significant milestone in our lives that I’ve always wondered how the idea of serving food before or after a funeral never caught on in Malta.

Even when it comes to portions, nothing can touch us. Who hasn’t experienced the Maltese buffet experience? Queues and queues of people, young and old, with plates piled high, acting as if they haven’t eaten in a week. I once literally saw a man pick up a tray of king prawns and empty it at his table before returning the empty tray with not even a trace of shame. People I know often comment about portion sizes and say that they won’t return to a particular restaurant because they’d received smaller portions than usual.

That’s why it was no surprise to find out that, according to World Health Organisation statistics, more than 75 per cent of our men are overweight, giving us the dubious honour of placing first in Europe.

It’s a sobering percentage and not one that should be taken lightly. However, so far, little has been done to improve how we view food and the country’s relationship with it. With ever-rising food prices, things are set to get hairier than they ever have before.

The truth is that the more costly food becomes, the more people with lower incomes will turn to quick and relatively cheap fixes like pastizzi and pizza to fill their rumbling stomachs.

If you think that education is expensive, try estimating the cost of ignorance- Anna Marie Galea

Our situation is not unique but the culture and history surrounding it are. In a country where food has always been scarce because we had very little income, few natural resources and outsiders either ignoring us or taking us over, our hunger stretches back hundreds of years. It would be foolish to disregard the effect this has had on the Maltese psyche and our relationship with food.

It would also be unwise to not look at the patterns in other countries which are or were also poorer than their neighbours. In these areas, bigger women are more prized, for example, because they represent fertility. A bigger woman would also inadvertently mean a more affluent woman in these parts because it would mean that food is more abundant. It’s only in wealthy, educated countries that being thin is seen as a highly positive and desirable quality to have.

We must initiate campaigns and put education systems in place to be able to combat this issue head-on. While being overweight doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is unhealthy, it can contribute to diabetes, heart disease and several other health issues that are a burden to the person suffering from them and our already bloated health system.

This is not something that we can continue to brush under the carpet; if you think that education is expensive, try estimating the cost of ignorance.