That’s more than two-thirds of the population who now have a greater risk of developing the health problems that come from being overweight.

From some cancers to type 2 diabetes, there are a lot of health problems linked to weight, yet an increasing number of Australians are at risk because of their size.

Yet is there any other issue about which people are going to receive more conflicting, confronting and confusing messages than weight?

There are genuine health reasons for maintaining a healthy weight and none of them have anything to do with having the perfect summer beach body.

It’s about time we told the judgmental and the image-conscious to get lost.

Having the perfect “beach bod” usually has little at all to do with being healthy and it’s about time we stopped muddling the two.

A person whose weight is within the healthy range, eats well and exercises regularly may not have what is considered the ideal shape to grace the cover of a glossy magazine, but so what?

It’s time we stopped letting “body shaming” blur the lines of what should be a discussion about staying healthy.

Society’s obsession with some Photoshopped plastic image of the perfect human – be they male or female – has been warping our ideas of what we are supposed to look like for too long.

We have seen a steady increase in the number of people in this country who are struggling with eating disorders, and while society’s obsession with perfection isn’t the cause, it’s certainly not helping with successful treatment.

It’s time we told ’em all to take a hike and had a boring, middle-of-the-road discussion about old-fashioned good health.

There are certain indicators that medical science shows we need to be mindful of. Our blood pressure and cholesterol levels are two of the most obvious.

A trip to the GP is probably the best place to check that everything is tickety-boo. Comparing ourselves to the unrealistic expectations of some social media influencer is not.

Forget any kind of celebrity endorsement. That’s about fame or money and, besides that, celebrities are usually people who rely on their appearance to get work.

Looking a certain way is their job and if it takes four hours a day in a gym to get a particular physique, they’re going to do it. Multi-million dollar pay cheques for roles in blockbuster movies are on the line.

We all know we need to stop judging people by their appearances, but it’s no mean feat in a world that does exactly that.

Nobody looks at a picture of a celebrity and thinks to themselves, "I wonder what what her cholesterol level is?” or “what’s his risk of type 2 diabetes?”, but that’s really the bit that matters.

We confuse the way someone looks with assumptions about their health and seem to have it fixed in our heads that the skinnier someone is, the more active and well they must be, and that all overweight people are lazy or have “let themselves go”.

At the same time as people in our everyday community feel judged for their size, we hold up celebrities with silicone implants and assorted artificially plumped-up bits as some sort of example of human perfection.

It’s complicated and confusing and likely to do little more than to give a few insecurities to even the most laid back of temperaments.

In a world obsessed with a fairly narrow view of perfection, it is hard to maintain a sense of normality, but we have to keep trying.

We have to remember that weight matters only so far as our health goes and that a few wobbly bits are pretty normal.

Most of us are guilty of adding to the problem. We wear make-up, style our hair and dress according to what we’re told is fashion.

It’s a question of balance and statistics suggest we are getting something terribly wrong.

The number of people struggling with their weight is increasingly, right along with the rate of those dealing with an eating disorder.

The pressure and the mixed messages, along with the busy lives most of us lead, are certainly not doing us a lot of favours.