LUKE MARSDEN: Why I've decided to give up salted popcorn for 2024

​A valid question my Uber driver asks as we drives through the rain on my return airport journey to Wigan. I can already feel my Trump-style tan fading and the misery of being back setting in.

Not 15 hours earlier, I was surrounded by fake snow and a strong feeling of the festive season arriving at Disney World’s magic kingdom.

Probably one of the most bizarre experiences on my US adventure was effectively fan-girling a YouTube travel blogger who was at the magic kingdom at the same time as I was. To me she is this impressive theme park influencer that I was so excited to meet; to her I was probably just some weird British bloke.

Has anything changed since I left? No is the answer. You can say a lot about the Americans (and I have) but they are nothing if not optimistic whereas we Brits, we see things in a cold light of day sort of way all the time.

Make no mistake about it though: alongside a gun epidemic, a political divide deeper than ever, the real crisis the USA has is one similar to Britain and, even more closely, Wigan.

What do Wigan and USA have in common? Obesity is on the rise. In fact a survey conducted in 2021 by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities put 73 per cent of Wiganers as either overweight or obese. I fear that number is now even higher.

I visited the cinema in the States and watched a gentleman pour four packets of salt onto his XL bucket of popcorn. He then proceeded to squirt liquid butter all over it for good measure. I told him he’d be lucky to survive until the film’s end credits and he laughed.

In Florida, people don’t use electric scooters for anything other than carry their own weight around.

Thankfully we’re not there yet in Wigan but, it’s safe to say, I’ve decided to give up salted popcorn for 2024.