MAYBE IT'S TIME FOR SLOW FOOD

Hold on to your scales, because another new study is out on the eternal topic of weight. Only this one, from the University of Tennessee, is weighing the marital value of weight...!

Where do these guys come up with this stuff? And yet, research director Andrea Meltzer is perfectly serious when she explains: "Husbands don't necessarily prefer thin wives as much as they do wives that are at least thinner than they are."

Which strangely reminds me of an over-weight Italian gentleman in a Rome restorante some years ago. We had just left the Sistine Chapel, and although our spirits had been raised to the heavens, our appetites were still very much rooted here on earth.

Hurrying through a splendid al fresco lunch, we couldn't help but notice -- and admire -- this portly man impeccably dressed in a three-piece suit. The staff obviously knew him well. He obviously knew the menu well. Order by tantalizing order, he seemed to be working his hefty way right down the list. Antipastos...rolls & breads ...soup ... pasta...salad,,,fruit & nuts...with a variety of hearty red wines every bite along the way.

No way in God's green earth could you imagine him hurrying into a drive-up window to order a Big Mac with fries. Fast food....? What are you, pazzo...!! America is the land of the free and home of the quick. Especially meals. We have things to do and places to go. Food is fuel for the body, that's it. For the soul....? We've got church for that...!

Chances are our rotund Italian will have a shorter life-span than our lean health aficionados, but oh how much sweeter it's likely to be. The poets and philosophers tell us life is a gift. On a good day -- with a good sun in the sky and a good Italian festa on the table -- it would certainly seem that way. Every slow bite into every tasty morsel can be in itself a prayer of thanks to the great green bounties of this gift we call planet earth.

Now -- back in hurry-up, get-it-done America -- every time I order a Big Mac, I think of our enormous Italian gourmand. And feel just a little foolish....