THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 5, 1995 TAG: 9502020159
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastwise
SOURCE: Ford Reid
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
Someplace deep in the swamps of mainland Hyde County is the only remaining person in America who is not now, nor has ever been, on a diet.
In just a couple of generations, we have gone from a people whose main concern was getting enough to eat to a people whose main concern is eating too much.
Diets started as a fad, but they have become an obsession.
But diets have gone way beyond a desire to shed a few pounds. There are diets to give you more energy, diets to make you a more pleasant person, diets to keep your hair from falling out and, of course, diets to make you live forever.
That last one is a little tricky because they keep changing the rules. What is bad for you this week may be declared good for you next week and vice versa. You have to read the newspaper every day to be sure that you and your diet are not working at cross purposes.
There are fat-free diets, vegetarian diets, fruit and nut diets and eat-anything-you-want-but-not-much-of-it diets.
There are hopelessly complicated diets that require you to count calories, fat grams and the number of beans in your soup. And there are simple diets, like the one a friend of mine was on. ``If it tastes good,'' he said, ``I have to spit it out.''
Any book store has at least one shelf of diet books and if you can't find one to suit your needs, keep looking. It is bound to be out there somewhere.
There are, in fact, so many diets out there that most of us have to be on two or three different ones at the same time just to keep up. If you are on only one diet, then you are a slacker who is making life difficult for the rest of us. Shape up!
Diets have generated a huge industry designed to convince us that we can eat all sorts of things, as long as we buy the right brand.
There are diet cookies, diet pizzas, diet ice cream and diet soft drinks. Which proves that you can go on a diet without any of the bother of ever eating anything that is good for you.
I marvel while watching someone consume an entire large pepperoni and sausage, double-cheese pizza and wash it down with a diet cola.
Or someone eating a huge hunk of chocolate cake, with ice cream on the side, while sipping a cup of coffee laced with artificial sweetener.
The problem with a diet is that it permeates your whole existence. You begin to think, constantly, about all of the things that you can't eat.
I was on a fad diet once and didn't miss the things that I thought I would miss. Pizza, ice cream, beer and cheeseburgers never crossed my mind.
Instead, I became obsessed with bacon and tomato sandwiches. I thought about them all day and I dreamed about them at night.
If you run into that guy over in Hyde County who has ever been on a diet, tell him about all of the fun he is missing.
He, too, could be making himself crazy. It's the American way. by CNB