Fat is a feminist issue, or so proclaimed the title of Susie Orbach’s influential book. For women, it was an empowering statement about taking control of their bodies and addressing the gender imbalance; body image, rightly or wrongly, has become part of feminine identity.

It’s a statement that still carries some, well, weight. Because society overwhelmingly still see fatness and body image as something for women to worry about. While we are increasingly sensitive to women’s body image and the issues around fat shaming, we’re way behind the time when it comes to the conversation around male body image issues. It’s a cultural bias that is driving up the numbers of men suffering from eating disorders – a 70 per cent increase in men admitted to hospital with eating disorders between 2011 and 2017 – and stopping men from opening up on how they feel about their bodies.

The problem for men starts early. A 2016 survey of 18-year-old boys found that 55 per cent would consider changing their diet to change their body, with notions of the ‘perfect body’ coming from from social media, advertising, and celebrities.

An American report from 2016 analysed studies of 116,356 men and found that 20-40 per cent were dissatisfied with their bodies. Here in Britain, 66 per cent are overweight or obese.

So why can’t we talk about body image issues seriously? Male fatness is still treated as a joke or failure – always the before shot, never the after. Being too thin, on the other hand, is “unmanly”. In fashion circles, actor Jonah Hill has recently been described as a style icon, but only after he lost weight. And another actor, Chris Pine, lambasted the double standards around nudity onscreen after the sight of his penis in the historical movie Outlaw King attracted sniggers in supposedly serious film reviews.