These comments are in response to the article entitled "Eating at work packs a mighty punch" in the Oct. 26 issue of the Health & Fitness section.

The article suggests the positive effect of eating 16 small meals a day rather than 3 meals of equal calories each day. If you decide to try out this idea, few things come to mind.

First, who has time to plan and eat 16 times a day? That means, assuming you sleep 8 hours a night, you are eating once during every single hour of your day.

It seems like it would be a lot harder to make sure you are eating a well-balanced diet each day when you are spreading out the RDA's over 16 different small meals.

How does this theory answer why it seems the French and Italians have a much lower incidence of obesity? I've always heard it's because they eat two or three large meals a day that are portion appropriate yet filling, therefore eliminating the urge to eat between meals.

Followed exactly, this plan would effectively eliminate sitting down with family and friends to enjoy a meal together.

It seems to me that there's a lot of room for argument with the 16 meal a day idea but I don't have time to think about it any more right now ... I have to go have something to eat.

Kathy Tabak

Barrington