How to Stomach The Debates

POLITICAL pundits and Ozzie and Harriet types -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- are howling "Hobson's choice" over the proposed early evening schedule for the Presidential debates, which begin Sunday at 7 P.M., Eastern time. But it is not the apparent conflict between family and country, the choice between sitting down to dinner or sitting down to the debates, that has people so exercised. No, it is the inevitability of high-fat retro food.

Oh, some voice the quaint notion that "family dinner" means "no TV." But when pressed, most admit that just about everybody watches television while they eat and that it is the particular cravings that television arouses that make them feel fatalistic.

"The debates don't represent a decision between an Ozzie-and-Harriet-style family meal and watching television," said Bill McKibben, author of "The Age of Missing Information," a book about television-watching published by Random House this year. Rather, the choice, Mr. McKibben said, is between "watching 'Ozzie and Harriet' and watching 'The Bill and George Show.' " Likewise, the choice of food to view by is not between carrot sticks or cucumber slices. More likely, it's between cheese curls and taco chips.

Conventional TV dinners don't fill the bill. Swanson's, the company that invented the TV dinner, typically enjoys high sales during campaign seasons, said Kevin Lowery, the company's manager of corporate communications. But the dinners fail to address the nuance of appetite and attitude fostered by dining in front of the tube -- to say nothing of the sense of occasion inherent in the Presidential debates.

The traditional TV dinner might be too tidy. "The whole thing about eating in front of TV is fingers," said Anthea Disney, the editor of TV Guide. "Using your fingers, and eating out of a bowl."

This urge is typically coupled with cravings for junk food. "While watching television, you are not seized with a desire for some healthy nourishing food," Mr. McKibben said. "I don't suddenly want carrot sticks. I want Cheetos."