But remember what happened to Helen Hunt the next season? First episode, she walks out of the bedroom, enter stage right, to complain about Paul. Happily, I dip my chip in salsa, take a crunch, shift in my seat, excited to hear her pithy quip. And then, GASP!

She is linguine thin, her face like a sharpened pencil.

"Oh my god, does she have cancer?" I ask my roommate, who is shrugging, wide-eyed.

After a very long, very analytical moment: "No, not cancer. Hollywood."

Okay, so where's the logic that adorable, funny, smart, sophisticated, fabulous Helen Hunt, ratings through the roof, wasn't good enough?

Did they click a digital picture of her?

Did they say: Okay, they love you. Now we've got problems. Let's try to make you look like a teenage sex symbol. That'll make it last. Otherwise, by next season they'll notice that your calves...you know, they're larger than...TV calf size.

So then Helen hunt, who was relatable - better than that, she was us in our best mood, our most on ever -- is a freak. But we still want to relate to her because she made sense to us and made us laugh. So I put down the chips and salsa I'm eating - the snack I thoroughly deserve for working 10 hours and then going to the gym. But I put it down, because if she's not good enough....

And what happened when someone like my boss watched Mad About You? (Or now you can add Will and Grace, or CSI, or Sex in the City, or plug in any of the plethora of smart, urban, educated professional female stars who have gone from normal to skeletal in a matter of seasons. Or weren't even let on the air until they were gaunt.)

That boss goes on a diet, and starts looking at everyone in their employ like they should be Helen Hunt. Eventually CNN does a segment and weightism is born.

Why I cite TV is because whether we claim our formative years were spent being spoon fed Edith Wharton, Kurt Vonnegut and their ilk, we're a visual society who watches TV. That is our global village, as much as the Internet, where incidentally there are quite possibly more video clips of Britney Spears than of George Bush.

Just one thing to think about: No one ever told Hot Lips from M*A*S*H to lose weight. And we never stopped loving her.