Most people have a disaster plan.

This may for finances, health or even matters of the heart. We like to be prepared for the worst but preventing the worst is, strangely, much less common.

It’s the poem that John Denver used to recite – The Ambulance Down in the Valley – where, instead of fencing off a dangerous cliff, more ambulances would wait at the bottom for impending fatalities.

It’s fine to deal with a crisis as it appears in some areas of life but not with health.

So, I’m constantly frustrated by public health messages conveying obesity as a disease when it’s technically a symptom of the disease of metabolic disfunction.

There are plenty of suggestions out there to treat obesity from shakes to surgery but none of them solve it permanently or, better still, prevent it from happening in the first place.

We think we get fat and then we get sick. In fact, we’re sick first, and then probably get fat though not everyone gains weight from having a poor lifestyle. We often hear people say "Oh, he was thin but had a heart attack so that just goes to show it doesn’t matter what you eat or how you exercise."

The alarm bells ring so loudly for weight gain that we neglect to take in the whole picture. Some overweight people can be filled with the less damaging subcutaneous fat rather than visceral fat which may surround the organs of seemingly healthy, thin people, known in the medical profession as TOFI – thin on the outside, fat on the inside.

Typically, they will look thin overall but have particularly thin legs and arms from muscle wastage and carry more weight around their middle. They, like anyone suffering metabolic disfunction, will have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high levels of inflammation and a higher risk of cancer. It’s just not so visible.

I mention this because I’d urge people to look beneath the surface. Sure, doing AstonRX will shed the kilograms quickly and effectively, but we see that as the tip of the iceberg. The reason it’s occurring so effectively is due to the underlying metabolic changes we’re making. We really want you to be healthier, not just thinner because that may well be just a veneer.

It’s about arming you with knowledge for the rest of your life to better manage your health, not just managing your trouser size.

So just trying to treat obesity is not the answer. Trying to treat metabolic dysfunction will solve that, and more.