A man enters a fish-and-chips shop on the outskirts of Glasgow. He orders a Mars bar. The cook unwraps it, dips it in batter and drops it into the deep-fryer. A few minutes later, the man is wolfing down a local delicacy.
This is no joke. Battered chocolate bars are the latest craze in the chip shops of Scotland.While the fad is a godsend for Scottish comedians, it has also helped focus minds on a more serious matter: the Scots are eating themselves into an early grave with such alacrity that the state has launched a campaign to improve the country's notorious diet.
"The deep-fried Mars bar is a symptom of a wider crisis," says Dr. Ann Ralph, a nutritionist at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen. "The Scottish diet is a disaster."
Medical statistics tell a grim tale. Scotland has the highest rates for heart disease, diet-related cancers and strokes in the Western world, and its mortality rate is closer to levels in Eastern Europe. Scots are 34 percent more likely to die before the age of 65 than are the English or Welsh. With health improving faster in other industrialized countries, the gap is widening.
Doctors have long blamed the "health deficit" on the Scottish tendency to eat too little fresh produce and too much sugar, salt and fat. Yet their warnings have often gone unheeded.
Scottish towns and cities are still jammed with sweet shops and bakeries, and the country's children consume more junk food than their peers elsewhere in Europe.
In the ubiquitous chip shops, often the final stop after a night on the town, everything from sausages and fish to chocolate and pizza is battered, deep-fried and served up with a pile of thick, limp chips.
A recent study suggests that nearly a quarter of Scottish men never eat green vegetables and that more than one-third never touch fresh fruit. Many Scots compound those sins by drinking and smoking heavily and shunning physical exercise.
As in other countries, though, nutrition and health are worst at the bottom of the social ladder. Many middle-class Scots have discovered the joys of healthy living, and city centers are dotted with grocers, vegetarian restaurants and health-food stores.
In Scotland's poorer areas, such as the housing estates that ring the major cities, the shops mostly stock processed food and no one bothers to ship in fresh produce because it's unpopular and too expensive.
How did Scotland get into this mess? Rapid urbanization is often blamed for breaking the link with the countryside and for fostering a dependence on convenience food.
Earlier health campaigns have also run up against the belief, held most strongly in the working class, that the death-wish diet is part of Scottish culture and thus beyond reproach.
"We take a curious pride in this appalling diet of ours," says Mike Lean, professor of human nutrition at the University of Glasgow.
To change that ethos, Scotland has launched its first national campaign for better nutrition. The "Scottish Diet Action Plan" proposes 71 ways to wean the population off junk food and to stimulate demand for the fish, fruit and vegetables that Scotland produces - and then promptly exports - by the ton.
Every Scottish household is to be sent a booklet outlining the merits and makeup of a balanced diet. Nutritional studies will be added to the school curriculum. Catering menus are to be overhauled in all public institutions, from schools to hospitals to government offices. Supermarkets and other food purveyors are being encouraged, though not forced, to promote healthier foods. A national diet officer will be appointed to help programs, such as the setting up of fresh produce cooperatives, to improve the diet in deprived areas.
Will such measures add up to a nutritional renaissance? Even the optimists aren't holding their breath. They know that salads and lentil soups are hard to sell to palates jaded by junk food, and they warn that it will take time, especially given the paucity of public funding, to conjure up a supply of cheap fresh food in areas that need it most.
Some dieticians predict that poor Scots will always eat badly as long as they're poor. Others wish that the new campaign enforced more and recommended less.