Making a Healthy Choice.(dieting and weight loss)(Polling Data)(Statistical Data Included)

Those who want to slim down tend to be more culturally sophisticated than average, preferring highbrow shelter and lifestyle magazines such as Architectural Digest and Art & Antiques.

Diets used to be about deprivation. Dawn Seeds still recalls some of the hard-to-stomach regimens. Freeze-dried fare from Nutri/System reminded her of astronaut food. The cabbage soup diet wasn't realistic. But the Mayo Clinic program, which included such dishes as drained tuna on dry toast, was the worst. "It was torture," says Seeds. Worse yet, each time she returned to eating normal foo