With the holiday season quickly bearing down on us and our waistline, I thought it would be a good idea to dedicate a column to my thoughts on food and eating. As a culture, we have decided to refer to this basic need and activity as diet and nutrition. Whatever you call it, we have issues with it.

Many Americans are overweight and heading toward obesity. I prefer the classic definition of obesity: “having excessive body fat.” That is pretty straightforward. I like it because a person can be fat at 200 pounds or even fatter at 150 pounds. It all depends on the percentage of your weight that is fat. But I digress; this is a discussion for another time. Today I am going to talk about simple ways to eat better so you won’t gain weight but still enjoy yourself between Thanksgiving week and January 2.

We have all heard that the average person gains two, four, six, or even 10 pounds during the holidays. This makes for good talk on the morning news shows, but it isn’t true. The average person doesn’t gain any appreciable additional weight specifically during the holidays. That doesn’t mean that many people don’t gain, but those people were probably gaining for the past 11 months as well; the holidays just make a convenient focal point.

Soon the stories will come out telling you how many thousands of calories you will consume in the average Thanksgiving Day meal. Once again, this is little more than hyperbole. If the stories simply listed the calories in a serving of each dish typically served, this could help you make some better choices. It would be more useful but not very good television.