Letter: Want to lose weight? Stop eating so much

You had an interesting and frightening article on the extent of obesity in our populace, especially with its potential to cause diabetes and heart issues. It included a paragraph on the calculations to determine body mass index (BMI) by dividing weight (in kilograms) by height squared (in centimeters).

Right, right. And how many readers do you think might be able to do those calculations? Maybe ... five? Might as well ask readers to divide their age (in days) by the square root of their ZIP code.

There’s a much easier way to reduce BMI, and obesity in general. Stop eating so much!

It wasn’t that long ago that McDonald’s made a big splash introducing its Quarter Pounder hamburger. Now that’s barely a patty, and many chains offer three patties plus cheese on half a loaf of roll. Plus an acre of fries. It’s waaay more than enough, but we’ve all been “trained” to clean our plates, so we do.

My wife and I hardly ever eat out that we don’t take home a “doggie bag,” and we don’t own a dog. Try it. It’ll reduce your long-term eating-out costs and fill a refrigerator shelf with next-day surprises. Only drawback is how to dispose of all those styrofoam containers.

This story was originally published September 12, 2016 at 4:16 PM with the headline "Letter: Want to lose weight? Stop eating so much."