Vital Signs: this new 'equality' for men is just pants

Be afraid. Be very afraid. We now have big elasticated tummy-flattening pants for men - all in the name of equality, I'm sure.

I would like to think that men - unlike women - wouldn't try to squeeze themselves into such a garment just to improve their silhouette. Are we really that vain? Apparently so, given that the entire first shipment has sold out.

Asda describes its £10 control pants - dubbed "Manx" after the women's control underwear brand Spanx - rather alarmingly as the "boxer short diet", promising they will lift sagging buttocks, flatten bellies and smooth over love handles.

I called their description alarming because we guys are lazy enough as it is, without being told a pair of massive pants is akin to a diet. They are just another excuse not to go to the gym or improve our diets, and an incentive to ignore the warning signs of bodies that are crying out from the effects of unhealthy lifestyles.

An expanding gut is a significant risk factor for heart disease, type 2 diabetes and other life-threatening conditions, none of which will be mitigated by Manx.

Research commissioned by Asda found that 60 per cent of women said their blokes carried excess weight around the stomach area and of these, half said they would like their partner to do something about it. That's all well and good, but elastic is not the answer. Manx have to come off at the end of the day and the flab will still be there.

At a more high-tech end of the scale we have Proskins Slim, which look more like Lycra cycling shorts. The promises for these get even more far-fetched. "Clinically proven to reduce cellulite without the use of surgery or creams" says the advertising waffle, and it claims they are "as effective as the best anti-cellulite creams". This is an unfortunate choice of words, as any dermatologist worth their salt will tell you that anti-cellulite creams simply do not work. Some may temporarily mask its orange peel appearance but none get rid of it and neither will these pants.

A final, and I admit rather medically minded concern, is what these pants will do for male fertility. The testicles need to be kept some two degrees cooler than the rest of the body for optimum sperm production. Will keeping them tightly gripped in figure-hugging elastic cause a drop in human birth rates in the long term? I hope we never find out.

Twitter: @DoctorChristian