Weight Watchers

I've been familiar with Weight Watchers nearly all my life.

My father was an early devotee and we sampled lite cuisine for many a meal. I credit the Weight Watchers cookbook with teaching me to love fish. As awful as it sounds now, my Mom used to prepare a buttermilk sauce for Sole that was out of this world.

As a teen and young adult, I had no need for Weight Watchers or any other diet plan. I ate what I wanted and burned the calories off with Ponce de Leon-like ease.

Soon after my wedding, however, I noticed that somehow, my sides were bulging in odd ways. It was as if breast implants had failed and slid down and to the sides.

"Love handles," were what they were affectionately called. (Affectionately is a euphemism for "said by family members who can get away with saying anything.").

In 24 years of marriage, I've been weight watching in the traditional sense. That is to say, watching my weight go up and up and up. 180 and athletic became 220 and pathetic.

So I'm on the wagon now. Watching the points and trying to get active. Muscle mass is "use it or lose it;" so I'm working out a few more minutes each day.

Truth is, after so many years of resisting this type of reform, I'm enjoying it. Meals and work outs are spent conferring with my wife and this only adds to the things that we enjoy together.

I'm feeling better and now that I have to track my points and read labels, I'm somewhat abashed at the amount of calories and fat that I used to consume at one sitting.

Today was my third Weight Watchers weekly gathering and as I heard people tell the stories about how the choices they made affected their physical well being; how exercise and diet helped diabetes and other chronic ailments, it occurred to me that the whole national health care debate is missing an important component - lifestyle choices.

This is not to say that the topic has been totally forgotten. Anti-smoking forces have been saying for years that increased cigarette taxes were only fair since the non-smoking population shouldn't be required to pay for the increased burden on the health care system caused by the personal choices of the smokers.

How then, is that any different than the increased burden placed on the health care system by the lifestyle choices of overeaters or couch potatoes? How about drug users or fast drivers?

When is it appropriate for the citizenry to put constraints on the lifestyle choices others make as a prerequisite for the health care that they are willing to pay for?

In anticipation of that debate, I'm going to have a 1-point fudgsicle.