Do you want to get rid of your gut? Follow Dr John Biffra’s guide and banish your belly for good. Dr John Briffa is a man with a mission. He has declared war on our waistlines — or rather, the male waistline. His new book, Waist Disposal, reveals how to get rid of an unsightly paunch — “I want to get rid of the gut for good” — and, as a government-commissioned report shows that eight out of ten men will be obese by 2020, it comes not a moment too soon. “I think that men are a hugely under-catered for demographic,” Dr Briffa says. “Lots of diets and weight-loss clubs have a feminine slant and yet men have weight issues too. The way men store weight around their middles is very strongly linked with heart disease and diabetes — the health problems are much more acute than for women.” There is, he says, an aesthetic element too. “When men have concerns about their appearance, that’s the area that worries them. They tend to grab their bellies and say ‘that’s the bit I want to get rid of’. Having a paunch is almost as unacceptable as being bald these days.”