I heard that if you are a couch potato who watches cooking shows on the food networks, or any network, you will gain weight. Can you beat that? Well, I guess you could beat it, especially with a handy beater, which is in your kitchen drawer.

My question is, if a person stops watching those foodie shows and watches exercise shows instead, will they lose weight?

This report did not explain the reason a person gains weight watching these shows. So, in my usual semi-detached, scientific manner, I conducted an experiment using a control group of skinny couch potatoes who watch cooking shows and became fat after watching them.

I concluded that visual calories, consumed while watching chefs whip up crepes, invade the hippocampus, travel through the bloodstream, attach themselves to the hips and stomach, and then spell out nicknames like “Hippo” with the new veins they create.

Hippos are generally educated, having spent their entire lives in the campus library where no one talks to them; otherwise they would have sued long ago for slander and libel.

My sociological conclusion is that couch potatoes and their viewing habits are very important to our culture. I have been practicing the art of lounging for many years, and the sofa and bed are two of my favorite places to lounge. I always have the television on and see no need to hide that fact from the snobs who profess to never watch TV.

“Ha!” say I. If they never watch television, how can they possibly carry on a civilized conversation?

Besides which, the food shows would die and most families would starve without the potato to fill the gaps in our diets left by uneaten broccoli. Leave your house and look around as you drive; three out of the four food groups you see on signs will be a potato in one guise or another.

My proclivity for lounging on the sofa may have begun in the far distant reaches of the past and my deprived childhood.

One of my favorite toys was Mr. Potato Head. He was invented before the potato, so all a child had were ears, noses, eyes, and mouths, some hats, a mustache, glasses, thong panties, a bra, and killer boots for Ms. Potato Head.

She was better known as Mrs. Potato Head back then, but has since become a feminist potato.

She was even prepared to use her maiden name, Ms. Tuber, but her friend, Ms. Corn, said she didn’t care for the sound of it. Ms. Potato Head trusted her friend’s decision, since her friend has an ear for names. Ms. Potato Head however, was the one who coined the phrase, “I have eyes in the back of my head.”

She actually has eyes everywhere, which really freaks out Mr. Potato Head, especially when they engage in marital relations. At any rate, there was no head to stick all the accessories into when I was a child, and thus, there was no need to make Mr. Potato Head anatomically correct.

I’m not sure why the whole mess was invented.

Finally, thanks to a shady deal between Hasbro, the toy company, and the Phoenicians, a group of people from Arizona, the alphabet was created a few years after Mr. Potato Head was invented.

The Mighty P’s, a name bestowed on the Phoenicians after a win by their football team, had been needing a placeholder between O and Q, because it was easy to confuse the two. They were inspired to add a kickstand to the Q to prevent it from rolling away like the O kept doing.

The Phoenicians, under the aegis of the Department of Health and Human Services, were told they had to have a reason for inventing a new letter besides just keeping the O upright; thus, they named a knobby thing they pulled out of the ground a Potato, and created the P.

(Strangely enough, their nickname hadn’t inspired them to invent the P.)

The name for the potato was a close call though; the Irish heard about the Phoenicians naming tubers, and were ready to come fight them over it. The Irish were already seriously ticked at the French for taking credit for fries.

There were originally 53 letters in our alphabet. Since the Phoenicians, after whom the capital of Arizona was named, didn’t have paper back then, they had written the alphabet in the sand during a particularly raucous picnic they were having one day.

As usual, much fermented cactus beverage had been consumed. The wind came up and blew away a bunch of the letters, but no one noticed until after the Phoenicians had committed their new alphabet to rock.

They just thought it must be the beginning of censorship in the press.

So, when you find yourself grappling for a word that is on the tip of your tongue, you are actually searching for those lost letters our ancestors wrote in the sand one blustery day in the desert.

These letters reside in your primordial (meaning your best ordial) memory banks, waiting for withdrawal. They have accrued quite a bit of interest, so once you withdraw the word, you will be able to go on that round-the-world cruise you’ve been dreaming about.

At any rate, children were at long last able to stick their noses, lips, and ears into something besides the dryer or the banisters, or even their parents’ business; I am speaking of course, of the Potato Head anatomy parts.

This love of the potato, and dressing it up to look like a goofy person from the Midwest, led to the natural desire to sit on the sofa watching other people cook dinner.

To answer my original question: Yes, you will lose weight while watching exercise shows, but only if your heart rate increases.

This will happen when the host or hostess of the show comes out wearing Ms. Potato Head’s thong panties and bra.

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