CAROLINE'S CORNER: TO PUSH BACK OR NOT TO PUSH BACK

Fighting fat is no fun. The battle is a heavy load that sits on our shoulders from the moment we get up in the morning and think of biscuits dripping with gravy until just before we go to bed and see the commercial for brownies with ice cream and maybe a dollop of chocolate syrup.

My male parental figure has always told me, "Just push back from the table."

That is easy for him to say. Obviously I did not get his "push-back" willpower genes. What is good for the gander is not necessarily good for the gosling, or what works for the chief does not necessarily work for the papoose.

I have spent many years trying to determine where I went wrong. It could be a difference in lifestyle. It is a little difficult to sit and play bridge for three hours with a dish of cashews on one side and a bowl of Hershey's kisses on the other side. What sane person could resist? Not me or my friends and associates.Then perhaps I am influenced by what W. Somerset Maugham said about perfection. The British author said, "Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved."

Far be it from me to strive to be perfect and even a trifle dull.

I think Minnie May Marble has the right idea. She is most excited that the Food and Drug Administration is considering guidelines that would speed the approval process for new anti-obesity drugs. The agency last fall proposed guidelines that would have required two years of human testing before approval of such drugs.

In January, a panel of scientific advisers told the FDA to ease up and require only one year of human testing for the drugs, and the FDA indicated it would follow the advice.

The FDA last approved diet drugs in the '70s. Some diet drugs can be addictive, and patients frequently regain lost pounds within a year or two of suspending the drug.

The new drugs, based on increased understanding of metabolic abnormalities, are expected to work better and have fewer side effects than older drugs.

MInnie May suggests we stop wrestling with food and get up and leave the mat and maybe even the gym. "Let's just enjoy 1995 and wait for the anti-obesity drugs," she said.

I'm invited to the Marble home tonight to eat Cajun cookery. The menu will include seafood gumbo like Minnie May's French-speaking Cajun grandmamma taught her to make. I'm crossing my fingers there will be beignet doughnuts topped with powdered sugar for dessert and that the after-dinner drink will be cafe au lait with lots of sugar.

The dinner music of choice will be Buckwheat Zydeco, his foot-stomping Cajun rhythms complementing the mouth-watering Cajun food.

How many centimeters do you think I will push back from the table?