Lack motivation and love cream cakes? You may not need a New Year’s Resolution after all...

... but you do need a kick up the arse.

Just as D-list Celebrity fitness DVDs begin their annual increase in popularity and glamour magazines fill their pages with dodgy diets, science can always be relied on to throw a cream cake in the works: being overweight may extend your life rather than shorten it.

This comes following the seasonal increase in soon to be ‘forgotten’ New Year’s Resolutions, made by those generally needing a good kick up the backside to instil some motivation. The study suggests fat may act to protect the heart and help you withstand periods of reduced eating resulting from illness.

Dietitian Sarah Shaw said: “After a week of pudding-filled parties, the non-chain smoking skinny folk carry on life as normal; going for their morning runs and eating healthily, whereas most of us lack the motivation to run for anything other than catching a bus or chasing a rogue toddler, hence the communal motivation found in New Year’s Resolutions is often the answer... for a few weeks.”

Bring on the pies...

The first study of its kind not to be funded by a fast food chain goes against all government advice aimed at tackling the obesity epidemic, prevalent under western diets and most common in the US where around 74% of the population are classed as overweight. However, the author stresses the results are not a green light to stuff your face as they only investigated life expectancy, not the likelihood of you contracting diabetes and the array of other fat-induced diseases along the way to your overweight prolonged existence.

Essentially if you’re an overweight, fatty food eating chain smoker, the advice still stands to get in touch with your local funeral directors; however, if you’re just packing a few extra pounds you can forget some of the guilt from the Christmas food binge as it may pay off when old age starts knocking.

Update: Many experts remain unconvinced about the findings - a typical day in the science office really.