A friend of ours had a couple of cats that were really fat. So he took them to the vet and said "I'm a bit concerned about these cats, what with them being overweight and everything. What should I do with them?"

"Use them as a coffee table," said the vet, unperturbed.

So I don't particularly think cats being overweight is too much of a problem.

Out of interest, why Frigg and Mafdet? (Mafdet sounds like something that's been spelled backwards, except it isn't.)

Well, Mafdet isn't so bad; she's a hunky girl, and while she's got a big pot belly, she gets around okay. But Frigg is another matter -- she's clearly carrying a load more than she ought to, for a cat of her size. If nothing else, neither of 'em can use the cat flap til they shed a couple of pounds. And the vet wants to do some dental work -- but doesn't want to put them under anaesthetic until they're a bit less overloaded. So I guess I'll take the vet's advice.

Having said that, cats don't generally suffer from heart disease and atherosclerosis the way us apes do, so it's not as serious as it'd be if they were human and carrying around 20-40% surplus weight.

Charlie: That's not a whole lot of overweight for a cat. Our old vet, who was a wonderful man and gave our Persian an extra couple of good years when everyone else had given up, said that he's not seen anything to make him think overweight is anything like as bad for cats as for dogs, for whom it is a serious problem. You don't want it to get out of hand of course, but unless they're quite small framed a kilo doesn't seem like much. My guys are both big though at around 12-13 pounds each.

MKK