Perhaps. According to the Daily Mail, which has got itself all hot and bothered about the latest really bad [definitely not silly season story] Apocalyptic craze sure to cause mass moral destruction to all four corners of, er, the Home Counties.

Mobiles ringing, tinny, happy house bubbling out of earphones, sweaty communal saddles and overt-grunting have all set gym-goers off on a Falling Down-style rampage.

This week’s question for our agony uncle, David Allen, is from Gavin, who hasn’t been able to quit uni-style boozing and soon turns 30.

Dear David,

While I was at Uni I used to drink socially along with everyone else. There was a pretty full-on drinking culture, in that we drank most nights (lots of cheap deals and two-for-ones in clubs) and then hair of the dog the next day.

Matt Damon looking like a bloated, 1970s, German sex pest is the talk of tinseltown, but it’s obviously just for a role. It’s always just for a role: except in the case of Kirstie Alley when it was more to do with a bacon roll. And a doughnut. And a steak. And… you get the idea.

Short of playing a war veteran, piling on the pounds and uglying up is the fast route to Oscar success.

Okay, so it’s a bit like staring at roadkill and turning it over with your foot. But we can’t help but gawp at how some celebrities have turned the corner from ‘helps designer clothes hang well’ to full-blown ’scrawny as a hobo’ stage.

Here’s our current pick of the worst.

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a pretty odd title for an article written by a hypnotherapist but it has a purpose and by and large it’s true, at least as far as claims of success are concerned.

One of the first things you might want to ask of a therapist, of whatever persuasion, is what is your success rate?

How many people with my problem have you ‘cured’? How good are you?

Okay, so we know that long-term eating sensibly and exercising regularly is the best approach to all-round good health.

But summer is coming, we feel like shit and look like rice pudding in shorts – we need to act fast. Sensible is for the winter months. Follow these five workout ideas for the fastest route to burning the bulge…

1. Get thee to a treadmillery

Running – especially on an incline – is one of the best ways to burn calories fast. Whether on the road or in the gym, a good, intensive run will give your body a cardiovascular workout, and tone your legs and tum.

Make sure that you warm-up properly – especially if you haven’t jogged for a while – and protect your joints and feet by wearing well-fitting trainers and knee supports.

2. No heavy petting, no bombing

Swimming is an all-round brilliant workout – just look how skinny fish are. But to really benefit, you have to actually swim. Not lounge about floating on your back and having a little think, not paddling up and down the shallow end like a happy Labrador, but proper up-and-down lengths, for a solid hour. It’ll feel nice and then it’ll wreck – that’s how you know it’s working.

3. Stroll to the Finnish line

Nordic walking is a form of walking using poles. Done correctly it is far more intense than a normal stroll and works your whole body. An hour and a quarter of Nordic walking will burn around 500 calories, but because your body is supported by the poles, you feel less knackered than a jog or power walk. Clever.

4. Let’s Get It On (but at a robust pace and with maximum effort please)

Yes, as it says in the bible, perhaps: shagging is great. Not only is it fun, not only does it make boys and girls like you, but it also burns a devil load of calories in just one easy session.

But this isn’t a case of lying back and thinking of England, no, this is a case of jumping around and thinking of the whole England team. Energetic bedness will work through several hundred calories per half an hour…

5. Pump it up

Of course you could just hand over the reigns to a scary, grimace-grinning fitness instructor at a Body Pump class.

The latest in paid-for-calorie-scorching-masochism, Body Pump is apparently the most popular group fitness routine of all time, and uses barbells and weights to a hardcore aerobic workout.

It hurts like fuck but by Jove does it do the job.

Image: jzmolek

Our favourite hypnotherapist, David Allen, has put together a guide on beating the dependency trap.

And no, it doesn’t just apply to booze. If you over-eat, over-stress, chew your nails or do anything else TOO MUCH you need to read this.

“Incentive, inspiration, drive, enthusiasm, impetus, stimulus, spur, impulse, and driving force are just some of the synonyms I found when I looked up the word motivation in the dictionary.” Read more of this extract from celeb trainer, David Kirsch’s new book, The Ultimate New York Body Plan.

One of the prerequisites to successfully completing any challenge is motivation. Without it, any challenge, including this one, will ultimately become too daunting to see to completion.

There’s been all sorts of hooplah over lovely big Fern’s gastric band deception, but what exactly is a gastric band, can anyone get one and should we want one?

Despite sounding like a snazzy belt, a gastric band is actually a very serious bit of kit that involves a hardcore (and dangerous) operation.

It’s really quite frightening how many medical breakthroughs have come about purely by accident. Though scientists don’t like to talk about it, they owe a great deal to chance.

You pay the world’s most brilliant scientists millions of pounds to find a cure – only for the answer to come about with all the skill of picking the right lottery numbers.

It certainly makes you think.

I mean, for all I know, the disgusting coffee cup which has starting growing some sort of fungus on it because I haven’t washed it for a week could be the key to the next big medical breakthrough.

It’s all well and good to get the inside info on Charlotte Church’s home gym or what type of fruit we should eat to get a flatter stomach, but isn’t it more useful and refreshing to hear how real women diet?

Many of us juggle high-pressure jobs and a busy home life, with barely a second to even think about going to the gym.

We spoke to Ruth Pugh, 22, a support worker from Middlesbrough, about all things diet…