One of the participants in a pioneering research programme, being conducted by a consultant at Noble's hospital, has been talking to Manx Radio about the experience.

Dr Emran Khan wants a "walk to burn" figure to be printed on all food products, showing approximately how many hours an average person would have to walk to burn off the calories consumed.

Yesterday, he revealed the results of six months of research, which suggest the groundbreaking idea could make a difference.

In terms of weight lost, the most successful of the 118 participants in the programme was Kevin Broadbent.

On Mandate PM today he spoke to Graham Bell about Dr Khan's idea (extended audio file):

The people involved in the research were split into two groups, both of which followed a calorie counting diet.

The difference was that those in Group B did a calculation, associating each item eaten with the distance they would have to walk to burn off the calories consumed.

The average weight lost by all participants in the programme was around two stone, but the total weight loss in Group B was slightly greater.

Dr Khan hopes to repeat the study to get more comprehensive, and therefore more reliable, data.

He would then present his ideas to the United Kingdom's food labelling agency.