“Great minds discuss ideas.  Average minds discuss events.  Small minds discuss people.”  

                                                                                     — Author Unknown

I was sitting at an outdoor restaurant with a childhood friend who was visiting.  As we waited for our food to arrive, I couldn’t help but eavesdrop on the conversation three women in their early 60’s were having at the next table. They were talking about diets; how many calories a day they consumed, which plans were too restrictive, etc.    The other thing that dawned on me was that my girlfriends and I have had numerous similar conversations.  “My God,” I thought to myself, “Am I going to have the same conversation 20 years from now?” No matter what generation we belong to, we women are constantly worried about our weight.

Here is some interesting and disturbing data published in Science Daily in 2008:

• 67 percent of women are trying to lose weight

• 53 percent of dieters are already at a healthy weight and are still trying to lose weight

• 37 percent regularly skip meals to try to lose weight

• 26 percent cut out entire food groups

• 16 percent have dieted on 1,000 calories a day or fewer

As we sit and wait for our food, can we not enjoy it without dissecting what it will do to our waistline?  I hope that one day I will eat sensibly, enjoy food, and stop worrying about how I look.  Twenty years from now, I want some 40-something women to overhear me talking about art or literature and not about calories.