WE'VE had the lighting renewed at our church. You should see it: better chandeliers than Caesar's Palace.

And we can vary it, with spotlights on the altar. It was all done by the agreeable Cockney Albert, a traditional tradesman of profound expertise. Cheerful. Prompt. No fuss. Keep him going with pints of tea and he's as happy as Larry.

Well, Albert has had a bit of trouble with his cholesterol and blood pressure and the doctor has put him on a diet: low fat, no egg and bacon, and the instruction to eat five pieces of fruit each day. When he turned up on the first day of the diet with the packed lunch his wife had made for him, I laughed so much that my own blood pressure must have soared off the Richter scale. It consisted of an orange, an apple - and three monster fruit pies!

If it wasn't for articles about health and fitness, diet and death, I think the newspapers would be half their size and television would have to close down at ten o'clock for want of programmes.

There's been a lot about "slimming for the beach" in the colour supplements recently and treating your annual holiday as if it were initial training for National Service squaddies: "Postponing life? Why not shape up and detoxify now?" They mean we should stay off the Pimms. "Enhance your innate wisdom, spirituality and faith. Heighten your clarity of consciousness. Increase your happiness as you scientifically reset your body's odometer." In the supermarket of self-obsession which has all but replaced true religion, there is a bewildering variety of options: "Veggies unite! Be a family that juices together." Sounds disgusting. "Remember you will need to take a regular enema to expel toxins." Really! Is having corporate enemas a family activity now?

This obsession with the body is matched by a worse obsession with the soul, as "spirituality" has become just one more department of the feel-good factory. There was an item on the wireless about how prayer and meditation reduce your blood pressure - as if that's why we're told to pray. Perhaps Albert should try it instead of the fruit pies?

Then came news from America that puritanical, evangelical Christians live longer than the irreligious. Perhaps they don't? It only feels longer. I read a book about the medieval monks at Lindisfarne and how they starved themselves in order to produce sensations of ecstasy. This is not praiseworthy, but only self-abuse in a phoney spiritual mode. I read with rising amazement of how these monks used to stand naked in the North Sea for hours to bring on visions. I get cold feet paddling at Whitby.

Is all this stuff about fat and cholesterol true? I read an article about the so called high fat diet which says cut out the pasta and bread and eat as much dairy produce as you fancy. You can't tell what to believe except that you live till you die.

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange.