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Q. Hi Fitz! You always say that drinking calories causes weight gain, so I'm willing to try kicking my habit. I'm completely addicted to Coke. There are all sorts of programs to help people stop smoking, but none for cutting back on soda. Help! Brian

A. Thanks for the terrific question, Brian. I'm so glad you've been paying attention! Yes ... caloric beverages such as soda, juice, milk and alcohol are definitely responsible for much of the extra fat folks are carrying around. As an example of this, I once did a series of lectures for a large fire department in my area. I referenced the huge fountain drinks I always saw the firefighters driving around with and showed them how much sugar was in each cup. As their jaws dropped, I challenged each of them to, at minimum, switch to diet soda and, at best, switch to water.

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Yeah, that's right, some good news on the smoking front. The number of smokers in Washington has been dropping steadily since 1999 and has reached an all-time low (so far, anyway) of 17%.

So that's the good news. The bad news is that of those 17% remaining smokers most are lower-income less-educated adults, and although they are interested in quitting they seem to be having a harder time doing it than the rest of the population.

But Washington seems to be on the right track, currently sitting with the 5th lowest smoking rate in the country. There's talk of routing funds towards giving the low-income population some help to quit smoking, in addition to their already successful approaches of an indoor smoking ban and increased tobacco taxes.

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It seems that restaurants and other public places aren't the only ones starting to ban smoking: more private households than ever before are following suit. Utah leads the nation with 9 out of 10 homes forbidding smoking, and the national average is lower but still pretty high at 3 out of 4.

I'm sure the smokers out there are feeling the pinch as they start getting shooed out to the patio not only at restaurants but now at their friends houses too. I do have sympathy since it's not an easy habit to break, but I'm also glad. I think the less everyone accepts smoking the easier it will be (in small ways) to quit, and the less people will get started in the first place.

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