The Daily Mail started the year by doing a serialisation of Paul Mckenna's new book The Three Things That Will Change Your Destiny Today but now they have a new story where they pitch doctors who perform gastric bands against the hypnotist and his new gastric hypnosis app.

The Times has already reported on the story that the gastric band hypnosis app is just a gimmick.

They report that many surgeons who perform the actual gastric bypass operation are saying that the Mckenna app cannot have the same effect and will not work in the long term. The surgery can cost up to £6000 and of course comes with all of the risks that any surgery can carry. The app is £4.99 and is more of a chance to make yourself aware of the changes that you can make for your life.

Dr Carel le Roux, a lead physician at London’s Imperial College Healthcare’s obesity service, is reported to have said that he thinks the app is ‘a gimmick’. and "isn’t powerful enough to be effective in the long term.’

 It won't work in the long term

Consultant surgeon Paul Super, from the BMI Priory Hospital in Birmingham, agrees. He says: ‘It might be called a hypnotic gastric band, but is no more a physical operation than a hypnotic pacemaker or hypnotic hip replacement. If it worked, then why aren’t thousands of patients having it on the NHS?’

These are interesting points of view but they do seem to miss the point entirely. The fact is that there are many thousands of clinical trials which show how effective hypnotherapy is over a huge range of issues, from letting go of anxiety and stress, to learning to turn down pain.

The same people who are getting an operation should of course be getting access to talking therapies as well in order to make sure that they have all of the support that they need.

I think that a gastric band hypnosis app is really only likely to be a short term fix, as it does not address the other emotional issues around eating, but of course that is exactly the same as with a physical operation.

When I work with weight loss clients I have a full programme which deals with all of the issues rather than a quick fix. My experience has taught me that many people want to end a lifetime of diets and binge eating in one session and this is just not a realistic way to go about it.

If you do want to end diets then you can read more on this website about my No More Diets programme.

As for the app then...only time will tell.

Neil Patrick Harris is best known in the UK for appearing in the sitcom How i met your Mother but he is really a song and dance man who has appeared in many musicals on Broadway. He has hosted numerous awards shows including the Tony awards where he is always keen to dazzle with an opening dance number.

This week he attended the Oscar awards ceremony luncheon where all of the 195 nominated actors, directors and behind the scenes team get together before the actual event on February 22nd.

He will be hosting the evening and he took the opportunity to show off to the crowd by pretending to hypnotise them into having a great time on the night. Normally the Oscar host does not attend the lunch but only turns up on the evening so perhaps many suspected that he had something up his sleeve... or in his jacket as it turned out.

He quipped to the crowd... "Some of you are good friends and some of you I just got a chance to meet for the first time but we are all going to be spending Oscar night together, where everything will be hilarious,"

And then he reached in and took a hypnosis spiral out from his jacket, pointed it to the nominees and said..

"Everything will be hilarious," he paused for a moment and then repeated. "Everything will be f***k*ng hilarious!"

I doubt that he really has the ability to hypnotise people if that is the way he does it, but I don't doubt that he will hypnotise in his own way when he hosts the Oscar ceremony for real!