CONSENSUS has it that bigger is not better when it comes to health, which is certainly the case when it comes to obesity and gas-guzzling motor vehicles.

Why then have we allowed supermarkets and out of town shopping malls to grow so big and powerful?

Furthermore, why have we allowed people to buy oversized and overpowered cars, simply to visit these places to stoke up with an oversized weekly shop for their oversized families?

All of them fighting for space on our undersized roads and car parks.

Has it been a foolish oversight perhaps?

The fears that plans to streamline the health service will further erode our traditional way of life, and our desire to live small personal lives, are surely misplaced then. The process of erosion started a century ago - perhaps even before that - when the motor car became a tiny part of our lives - and it grew and grew, and got faster and faster - and where are we now?

Certainly, no traditional way of life and hardly small scale personal lives. Moreover, most of the nation's health problems, and indeed the world's problems, have their roots in the motor car. Mankind cannot stop progress. Only nature can do that.

Maybe the small scale man on a bicycle, if not curing the problem completely, can certainly help improve matters.

That is if he doesn't get squashed by an oversized lump of metal travelling at over-the-top speeds.

ALLAN RAMSAY