IMAGINE, if you will, being forced to do your weekly supermarket shop accompanied by Jason Leitch and other Scottish government health officials.

It would almost certainly be a dispiriting experience, with every stray packet of biscuits or full fat yoghurt being placed in the trolley being met with resounding disapproval.

And that’s before you even find the alcohol aisle which will be met with total apoplexy from the accompanying hoard of health police.

But that very scenario could soon be feature of everyone’s shop after Tesco announced it could use shoppers’ Clubcard data to warn them when their baskets are becoming unhealthy.

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The grocer’s chief executive Ken Murphy said artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to monitor how customers were shopping to help “nudge” them into healthier choices.

He said: “I can see it nudging you over time, saying: ‘I’ve noticed over time in your shopping basket that your sodium salt content is 250% of your daily recommended allowance. I would recommend you substitute this, this and this.’”

Mr Murphy said the aim was for customers to feel that “Clubcard is literally doing their job for them and making their lives easier”.

Tesco is Britain’s largest supermarket, and more than 22 million households are currently signed up to its Clubcard scheme, which launched in 1995 and gives customers access to lower prices.

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So this scheme will cover an awful lot of people, not all of them in need of healthy advice.

It also begs the question how it will all work - will an alarm go off and all the doors locked if someone puts two bottles of wine or a half a dozen cream cakes in their trolley.

While there is obvious merit in getting people to eat more healthily, this scheme is unlikely to work.

People will not suddenly switch to eating fruit and veg as opposed to frozen pizzas and chips just because their Clubcard tells them to do it.

They will simply shop elsewhere in a supermarket which does not feel the need to be intrusive into people’s choices.

The UK’s obesity epidemic is one that must be tackled as a degree of urgency. But using AI to monitor what you buy is a retrograde step that has sinister undertones.

Will your shopping data, for example, be shared with your GP surgery and once they find out what you’ve been eating and drinking, stop offering their services on the grounds that your ill-health is your own fault because of your diet.

But it is becoming increasingly clear that this is the direction of travel for the NHS..

Preventative medicine is absolutely the right way to go to try and get the NHS back on track.

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We are all living longer but falling ill earlier which is putting intolerable strain on the service.

Things have to change but it needs to targeted and not a one size fits all approach.

UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting alluded to the fact earlier this week as he announced a radical shake up of the NHS south of the border.

Insisting he was not the ‘fun police’ he said that the goal was to change people’s habits so they needed less treatment for ‘lifestyle’ illnesses.

I suppose the logical progression would be the NHS not treating people deemed to have brought it upon themselves.

Then the NHS can be left to just treat healthy people instead, which is probably the ultimate goal.