Rescue me, me, me

Self-help books are becoming increasingly popular - but the more we fret about 'self', the less it helps.

According to sales figures from Amazon UK, six of its 20 most popular books are self-help guides like Paul McKenna's 'I Can Make You Thin' and Gillian McKeith's 'You Are What You Eat'. While a boost in sales might be expected at New Year, with resolutions being made left, right and centre, sales of self-help books over the past year are up 40 per cent.

Part of this is due to the overblown panic about obesity which has cranked up our obsession with weight loss to greater heights. But it's not just our expanding waistlines that are weighing us down. There is clearly a general mood in which we are increasingly worried about our wellbeing - ironic, at a time when general health and life expectancy have never been better.

This obsession with ourselves is decidedly unhealthy, especially when even the humble diet book is being transformed into an all-encompassing guide-for-life. Instead of taking advantage of the myriad opportunities to improve our lives and our world, we are navel-gazing as never before. And the upshot is that we need some outside expert to save us from our personal failings - even if that is in the form of a book. So much for 'self help'.

The authors of these books are generally ill-qualified parasites who are getting rich off our fears. Worse, their prescriptions seldom work. Rather than buying any more of these books in the vain hope of self-improvement, the best New Year's resolution would be to bin the lot.

Public turning to self-help books, BBC News, 13 January 2005