In the battle against the bulge and in the drive to eat healthily, we haven't known which way to turn.
Will failing to feed our children an entirely organic diet send us directly to hell? Is chocolate good for blood pressure or bad for cholesterol? Just what exactly is moderation?
In face of this bewildering array of questions many of us have decided to comfort eat and over the festive season we have collectively put on more than 200 million pounds, the equivalent to two cruise liners, 277 jumbo jets or 19,635 elephants.
As ever, January brings the inevitable raft of resolutions and top of the heap is the promise to slim down and shape up, with a quarter of us determined to develop a new sleeker-self for 2007.
It's hard to knock such good intentions, but in the 21st century it seems we are becoming ever more reliant not on a sensible eating and exercise plan, but a celebrity of our choice.
Coronation Street's Janice Battersby appears to be the unlikely victor in this year's fitness stakes, with the actress Vicki Entwistle topping Tesco's chart with her Weight Off Workout, which is currently out-selling similar efforts from the likes of Jade Goody and Davina McCall.
By February, most of these DVDs will be gathering dust in the back of TV cabinets or making their way to car boot sales, having done no harm and maybe even a little good.
However, our growing obsession with the kind of advice which can only be dealt out by celebrities is giving cause for concern.
Carole Caplin, Elle Macpherson and even Jamie Oliver have been singled out for censure after being caught spouting little more than gobbledygook to those who hang on to their every word.
According to Sense About Science, many celebrities would do well to go back to school before agreeing to front public campaigns which could not only damage their credibility, but also send the public on a wild goose chase for the secret to healthy living.
"All year long people send us frustrating examples of celebrities promoting something that makes no sense," says director Tracey Brown. "Once it's done, it's really difficult to undo. We know some people aren't interested in good science or evidence.
"We are equally sure some will be glad to talk through claims they are asked to front, because they take their public impact seriously, or just for their own self- preservation."
Lifestyle guru Caplin has been brought to task for alerting women to the "importance of keeping the lymph system clear and unclogged" in the prevention of breast cancer, advice UCL's Professor Michael Baum has dismissed as having "no meaning whatsoever", adding: "It is not based on knowledge of anatomy or physiology of the human body, let alone of breast cancer."
Other offenders who have now found themselves in Sense About Science's rogues' gallery include supermodel Macpherson, who gushed about the benefits of organic food, saying: "I feel happy that I can feed my family food that avoids unnecessary pesticides and harmful food additives."
As Ursula Arens of the British Dietetic Association points out: "Approved additives are not harmful for nearly all people. They have been assessed as safe for human consumption and their use is strictly controlled. In fact, additives can make food safer by, for example, stopping it going off too quickly."
Even everyone's favourite celebrity chef appears to be guilty of fuelling the food fad by affirming he wants to "cook with the best ingredients and have food the way it should be: healthy, tasty and grown with nature".
On the surface it's hard to argue with the man who took on school dinners, but Prof Vivian Moses, is not happy.
"Jamie, we all like healthy and tasty, but what do you mean by 'grown with nature'?" asks the King's College London biologist.
"Not one of our crop plants or domestic animals exists in the wild, they have all been created by selective breeding over the past 10,000 years.
"Wheat, for example, doesn't exist in nature; we made it. And nowhere on earth do crop plants exist in rows unless we put them there."
And while Heather Mills McCartney could do with a few friends at the moment, Dr Joanne Lunn of the British Nutrition Foundation has pulled her up short for claiming obesity levels among children were directly linked to the amount of milk they drank, explaining: "Milk is one of the most nutritionally complete foods and if people excluded milk and dairy products from their lives, they would miss out on many of the most important constituents of a healthy diet."
By securing the right celebrity, brands can guarantee sales of everything from fitness videos to fat-free sausages, but with the public increasingly likely to put their trust in the famous rather than the qualified, some stars need to carry a health warning of their own.
"There are numerous examples of actors or musicians scaremongering over vaccines or pesticides when they have little or no knowledge of the subject," says Dr Simon Singh, trustee of Sense About Science. "Celebrities can have a huge influence on the public, but they need to make sure they are doing more good than harm by checking their facts before making any proclamations."
sarah.freeman@ypn.co.uk