The Philosopher's Diet - Richard Watson

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presumably because our ancestors evolved through times of feast and famine. There is nothing wrong with having a little store of fat right now. When you read in the newspaper about people marooned in Alaska by an airplane crash, you find that the fat ones survive. And it is always good to have some fat in excess in case you get sick and lose weight. Once the fat goes, your body starts eating up your muscles and organs, and then you are really in trouble. Fat helps keep you warm, too, in case the airplane crashes in cold water. Skinny people starve and freeze a lot sooner than fat people. That's why many Americans who lived through the Depression and Germans who lived through World War II are fat today: they don't trust tomorrow. As for today, there is always unemployment, and it could happen to you, My brother-in-law, who is an ex-air-traffic controller, particularly advises anyone who intends to strike against the government to fatten up first.

      So what are diet books for? They provide light reading for moderately heavy people. Just reading a diet book relieves some anxiety about one's weight. This is because most people who buy diet books aren't really fat. They fret about it a lot, but these diet groupies are seldom more than 20 or 30 pounds over the average healthy weight recommended by doctors and federal agencies. Suppose you are a man who "ought" to weigh 150, but you weigh 175. Or a woman who "ought" to weigh 110 but weighs 130. You may look pudgy in comparison with fashion models, but you can carry it. Listen, the government gives you some leeway when it comes to fat. The Feds set a standard, but you have to be fat to get turned down by the Army. Consider someone with high standards. The painter Peter Paul Rubens would not have looked twice at most of today's self-designated overweight women. And he did not love fat women: his models were voluptuous. A lot of us have a thing about voluptuous women. They have always done all right, they are doing all right, they always will do all right.

      Really fat people seldom buy diet books and seldom go on diets. Some of them are not very healthy, some of them have quite serious problems, and some of them don't care. Not one in a thousand of the obese thinks a diet book will help, so they don't bother. Still, there are always exceptions, and my book could be for one of them, too.

      Let's get back to your average "overweight" American. People usually fret about fat because of vanity. Deep down, of course, most of us know that we will never look like a fashion model. We are not built that way, we cannot afford that kind of clothing or would not wear such a bathing suit. We know it would be a lot of trouble, even if we were, could, or would. On top of all that, we keep growing older. Still, we can dream that we look like the beautiful ones. Just going on a diet makes you feel better about your looks, and there is the added pleasure of boring your friends by talking about your diet.

      The diet industry (philosophical analysis reveals) is part of the entertainment business. It belongs to the specialized branch that manufactures unnecessary things to do. Going on a diet is like playing solitaire. But unlike playing solitaire, dieting is approved by most people as an activity requiring moral fiber. To attain this preferred status, start a diet and (most important) tell people you have. You can talk self-righteously about dieting in any company. Almost nobody takes off a lot of fat and keeps it off. If they do, serious dieters ostracize them. The only socially acceptable thin dieters are those who write the diet books, although you will find that they have few fat friends.

      Dieting is a serious business, but most dieters are not serious about maintaining the weight they reach after they have taken off a few pounds. They gain them back, and then lose them again. "Oh, here I go again," they say.

      What if you do want to take the fat off and keep it off? That's an interesting question. So is the answer. But it will take a while. Hang on.

      Let's start like a philosopher, with another question. Are many Americans as overweight as they think they are? Consider a government formula for determining the average weight of American adults who range from about 5'0" to 6'4" tall. For men, you count 110 pounds for the first 5 feet and add 51/2 pounds for each inch above 5 feet. For women, you count 100 pounds for the first 5 feet and add 5 pounds for each inch above 5 feet. Thus, the average weight of an American woman 5'3" tall is 115 pounds. This is dry, nude weight. Weights more or less on this order are "right" for normal healthy people. A lot of people fit in that range. (Where do you think they got the average in the first place? By weighing a lot of Americans, adding up all their weights, and averaging them out.)

      There are many healthy men 5'8" tall who weigh anywhere between 134 and 174 pounds. What if you dressed them all in three-piece suits? They would all look much the same unless you stood a pair of the extremes side by side. If you check in at the average weight, do you get a prize? No, all the weights in this 40-pound range are normal.

      Indeed, there is no reason why the average should even be healthy. Dr. George Sheenan (who wrote a column for Runner's World) claims that the healthiest weight is 10 percent below the average. Thus, the healthiest 5'8" male (all other things being equal) would weigh 138.6 pounds, and the healthiest 5'3" female, 103.5 pounds. That's where the squeeze begins. Suppose you are a perfectly comfortable 5'8" male weighing in at 174 pounds. If you want to be at the national average, you must lose 20 pounds. But if you want to be healthiest according to Dr. Sheehan, you've got to lose 30.8 pounds.

      You need not stop there. Dr. Ernst van Aaken (who also wrote a column for Runner's World) says the best running weight is 20 percent off the average. So a 5'3" woman weighing 130 pounds, though perfectly within the normal average range, would have to lose 15 pounds to match the abstract American average, 26.5 pounds to be healthy according to Dr. Sheehan, and 38 pounds to run for Dr. Van Aaken.

      I know people who have the magic weights, but almost none of them dieted to get there. In fact, most of those who fall below the American average are trying to gain weight to reach it.

      If this is beginning to seem pretty silly, that's just the point. Because you don't fit the government's figure for average weight exactly does not mean that you should fret about fat and dieting or that you are overweight or unhealthy. The average figure is simply an abstract measurement and has no necessary connection whatever with health or being overweight. If everyone were really unhealthily overweight, then the average would be unhealthy. As it turns out, the American average is perfectly healthy according to most of the medical profession. If you want to get down to Dr. Sheehan's figure, fine, it probably won't hurt you. Unless you want to be a world-class runner, however, or you just naturally weigh very little, stay away from Dr. Van Aaken. Furthermore, if you do have to lose weight because of a heart problem, diabetes, or whatever, your doctor will either scare the dickens out of you so you stay on your diet, or he won't and you might die. I would stick to my diet if my doctor told me I would pop off otherwise.

      Now does all this rather ridiculous fretting about your weight do you any harm? Nah. Or, let's put it this way: if you have anorexia nervosa you might starve yourself to death, and if you have bulimia you might eat yourself to death. If you are not sick, fretting about your weight is probably better for you than fretting about something you can't do anything about, such as whether or not someone will push a button and start the nuclear holocaust.

      My sister Connie, who is a radicalized housewife and "part-time" employee in one of America's major service industries ("part-time" in quotes because although she works full-time, they won't designate her as such, for then they'd have to pay benefits), points out to me that being overweight in America has nothing to do with health, but everything to do with fads and fashions. Women who are much above or even at the average figure are perceived as being overweight. This perception, usually more by other women than by men, is what is important. You might conclude that if you don't want to be seen as a fat slob, then diet. I'm opposed to this kind of argument. You shouldn't diet just because the clothing industry hires emaciated models. Let's try to rise above that kind of pressure.

      Still, I know that it doesn't help to be told that Polynesians and Turks and Peter Paul Rubens love fat women. Or that Lillian Russell, the toast of the 1890’s, weighed 200 pounds and was thought to be a sylph. Today, you don't have to be as thin as Twiggy or David Bowie to get admiring comment from your friends. All you have to do is stay on the low side of Roseanne Arnold and Marlon Brando.

      You could just wait. Styles are bound to change, but what about all the subtle peer pressure that is so pervasive now, however faddish? Well, all right, there is a way. You can lose weight and keep it off if you want to do the

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