WHAT I want to see is what’s on offer, what it costs, some relevant information about the ingredients and (for the sake of readers with allergies/intolerances) whether special dietary requirements are catered for.

What I don’t want to see is how many calories are involved. Yet that is what is on the cards if plans go ahead to force pubs, restaurants, cafes etc to display the calorific content of the food they are serving.

All in the name of tackling the national obesity epidemic, it seems a reasonable suggestion on paper. But it’s not. While large chains such as Wetherspoons, McDonald’s, Tesco etc serve food very much to a set formula – and can therefore calculate with accuracy their caloric content – such a move will cause no end of problems for small independent food providers. Take a chippie, for example.

There’s no way of being precise on calories for most chip shops, because not every piece of fish is a standard size – and some servers are more generous with the doling out of chips than others.

Depending on the size of fish and the mood of the chip shoveller, I reckon there could be a good 200 calories difference either way.

I’ve always found details of calories on menus to be a curiously joyless addition to the eating out experience.

And that is what makes this proposal so pointless. Obesity starts in the home. It’s down to the consumption of gallons of sugary drinks, of crisps, biscuits, fry-ups and processed rubbish – all of which comes with details of calories on their labels.

People addicted to sugar (which is what’s at the heart of the British obesity problem) aren’t put off consuming their fix of choice, even when the number of calories is there on bold display.

Most people eat out relatively occasionally: no one gets obese by going out for a bar meal a couple of times a month – or even once a week. Adding another layer of red tape to the already heavily regulated industry of food production will serve little if any purpose in the quest to stop us becoming a nation of Billy and Bessie Bunters.

Ultimately, it comes down to common sense.

Surely we’re grown up enough to accept that we are responsible for our own bodies.

That if we get fat, it’s our own fault.

It is not the responsibility of our pubs and restaurants. Give them – and us – a break.