The Margin was interested to read a little snippet recently about America's overweight truck drivers. They are being targeted by the US government which wants to get them out of the cabs and into the gym, according to the Irish Road Haulage Association's February newsletter.

It says a Department of Transportation (DoT) study found that about 70 per cent of truckers are seriously overweight. And a recent study found that the accident rate of seriously overweight drivers was twice that of thin ones, and there is also a theory that those who are fit tire less easily.

So the government and the American Trucking Association Foundation got together and are offering drivers free memberships to health clubs in an experiment, as the IRHA magazine so aptly puts it, "aimed at getting them to shed their spare tyres".

Modesty forbids the Margin to draw up its own suggestions of what professions the Irish Government should target in a bid to produce a slimmer, fitter workforce.