I misunderstood when I heard about this story, or the person telling me about it did. It speaks of a diet, and of course that usually means a temporary change in food regimen, but in this case, the reference to diet is about clothing.

The way it was explained to me, people who'd lost weight had chosen to stick with six garments only until their weight had stabilized, so that they didn't end up with a range of sizes for the long run.

I see now that this makes no sense, but what it recalled for me were the days when I was dropping from 365 to about 200, where I remain today 20 years later. Except for a couple of size 64 sweatpants that I bought (slightly oversized for what I needed) — while I was in rehab, I got rid of every stitch I owned, and eventually disposed of everything I'd bought to replace it on the way down, because that stuff no longer fit, either.

I became a peacock for a while in the process, with a range ties and suspenders and other accoutrement. I'm now back to jeans, tees, and shorts, but without all the drama of my fat years. You can think of it as shedding skins and not be far off.

Anyway, turns out that the Times story is about people who have scads of clothing, some of it years old and still with tags on it, because they keep buying clothes, and shoes, as if they need it, when they don't. They winnow out a subset of six and go a month, seeing what it would be like, and those who stay with it, obviously, find it's valuable.

This, of course, is largely about consumerism. Companies are delighted when we buy more than we need, and this applies not only to clothing but to food. As a nation, we buy hundreds more calories per person than we need to maintain a healthy body. You know what that means for corporate bottom lines. If we each ate what we needed only — tasty and enjoyable, but less — food companies would suffer greatly.

I've heard the stat 17 percent of revenue, on average, but I can't recall the source and I'm not of a mind, this morning, to ferret it out; believe what you want. Even if it's half that, imagine what would happen to companies that started taking it 8.5 percent less money. Clearly, stoking obesity is a good corporate practice; it's not possible to think otherwise.

In both cases, companies have worked very hard, through incessant advertising, to decouple need and want. Food and clothing may be essential needs, but merely meeting essential needs won't pay for all those fat bonuses that corporate execs are apparently entitled to.