When faced with the questions: to be fat? Or not to be fat? Most people would choose the latter. In a Utopian world, everyone would be happy and thin. In reality, people have to work to achieve the perfect figure. The difference comes in when people choose their route to thinness.
Put it off Patty

Put it off Patty is not noticeablely over weight, only fifteen pounds or so. Special occasions such as weddings, vacations, or Spring break are Patty’s excuses for losing those unwanted pounds. Patty makes a pact with herself to eat and live healthily beginning…tomorrow. But instead of actually going down to the gym or cutting back on the carbs, Patty looks at the hearty meal in front of her and thinks, the diet can wait another day, I just won’t eat as much tomorrow, and devours the meal like a bear preparing for hibernation. When the next day comes and Patty’s cute co-worker asks her out for ice cream, how can she resist? Patty never gets down to her ideal weight, but it is always on her mind.
Cop Out Callie

Cop out Callie is a victim of the get thin quick schemes. Unlike Put it off Polly, Cope Out Callie doesn’t promise herself that she’ll work it all off later, she simply wants the extra weight to disappear on its own. She sits on her sofa, guiltily eating what she pleases until a diet pill advertisement flashes across the television screen. She wants to lose weight, but cannot stand the sweat and smell of the gym. She does as much running as she’ll ever do to reach the phone. She dials the commercial’s number, being repeated way too many times, and orders a year’s worth of diet pills. After a week on the pills with minimal results, Callie is back on her sofa, guiltily eating, but never giving up hope that the next wonder pill will work its magic on her.
Plastic Polly

Plastic Polly has no intention of breaking a sweat or popping a pill. Polly has the money to take on a more professional shortcut to a thin figure. Liposuction is the one procedure that Polly is thoroughly educated in, being an experienced patient, and it makes her feel intelligent to know about medical stuff. Liposuction slims and reshapes specific areas of the body by removing excess fat deposits, improving your body contours and proportion, and ultimately, enhancing your self-image. But is the image worth the price? The total cost for liposuction of the hips, outer thighs and buttocks might be the sum of the surgical fees for hips ($2400), outer thighs ($3000), and buttock ($1800), plus non-surgical fee ($1600), which equals $8,800 (www.liposuction.com/howtopick/cost.php). Price is no object for Polly, bring on the scars.
Committed Connie

Committed Connie is the woman in the spandex with the matching tank top. Every person in the gym knows her name because she’s always there. She keeps to her work out and retains her figure the hard way. She doesn’t mind the sweat or the stink that comes with earning those rock hard abs or those buns of steel. When presented with a huge meal, she knows to eat just below her limit. If she were asked out for ice cream, she would suggest another place for a snack. When she sees diet commercials, she laughs to herself as she continues her crunches on the floor until her show comes back on. And liposuction? Ha! Is that really an option? Committed Connie has it together, and she looks good. She’s not ultra thin, but she is toned and strong. Connie has her diet route perfected and she intends to stay on that path.

In all, the path to the perfect figure is not an easy road to follow. There will never be a Utopia where everyone will be effortlessly thin. But whether you are Patty, Callie, Polly, or Connie, you are faced with the decision to be fat or thin. Although their routes are different, and some more effective than others, all of these women resort to diets in order to be thin.