THE 'WORRIED WELL' ARE A CONSEQUENCE OF AGNOSTICISM, ATHEISM AND APOSTASY (Letter to Dom Post, July 29)

Emeritus professor of sociology Frank Furedi, who reckons historically we’ve fetishised food and that we’ve gone back to gluttony being one of the deadly sins (Cyberchondria is catching, July 29), must be living in a time warp. If gluttony were still regarded as deadly we’d hardly be obsessing about food the way we do now, as never in the past. The ‘huge rises in the worried well’ are consequences of agnosticism, atheism and apostasy: healthy people who have no belief in the life to come are naturally desperate to last as long as possible in this one.