POOR, POOR, OPRAH

It’s official: Weight Watchers is over.

Despite the effort to rebrand — it’s now WW, for the record — we’re finally throwing in the towel. After all, even the smartest woman in America can’t make it work. The same woman who had a hand in creating the obesity epidemic in the first place. We can’t forget that the majority of Oprah’s 25 years of daily programming centered on weight loss. Remember the wagon with 80 pounds of fat that she showed off during her Optifast experiment? She looked great — until she gained all the weight back. And then she started again.

As she’s made evident time and time again, Oprah is obsessed with her eating. This is the woman who went to Paris in 2005 when the French Women Don’t Get Fat diet book was on the best-seller list. She used all her willpower not to eat one “tiny” croissant (only tiny by American standards, by the way), and then she gorged on three at the airport on the way home. She helped create our overweight bodies, so buying WW was just a natural extension. Until early November, when CNBC reported:

“Weight Watchers shares tanked nearly 14 percent Thursday after the company said the number of subscribers had declined for the second quarter in a row and its third-quarter earnings and revenue missed expectations.”

Does this decline mean that the American public has finally wised up? That we now comprehend that the “calories in versus calories out” equation is a huge oversimplification?

Are we leaving the Church of Dieting because we know about cortisol and insulin resistance? Do we recognize that the 200 “free foods” (including chicken) on Weight Watchers are there so you can spend your Points — those elusive numbers — on binge-worthy foods? (You get to eat “free” and binge with Points. Makes so much sense, right?)

Weight Watchers started the problem in 1963, and then the media hopped on the diet bandwagon and helped grow American bodies. Now 50 percent of us are obese and another 20 percent are on their way. Seventy-six million are pre-diabetics and 29 million are full-fledged diabetics; and according to the CDC, another 10 million likely have diabetes but haven’t been diagnosed. Bottom line: We’re in big — sorry for the pun — trouble.

To make matters worse, the fix for our oversized bodies will require eating less food. But won’t this hurt the economy? After all, it’s been so lucrative fattening us up! When it comes to the morbidly obese, mounting evidence points to bariatric surgery — the fastest-growing category — as the solution. What else can we do? Fasting needs to be a part of our “eating” story — sorry “healthy” eating program.

Slimming America down means we won’t be buying as much as possible. We won’t be buying stuff we don’t need — particularly food — with money we don’t have. We won’t keep spending and spending and spending. Sounds scary, right?

Or does it? Here’s a simple strategy: Can’t the food manufacturers just raise prices and reduce portion sizes?

Because that’s exactly what killed the cigarette habit. These days a pack of cigarettes costs $13 in New York City. I remember when it was $1.50 and it was commonplace to bum a cig.

And now we hear about pre-existing conditions. Supposedly 25 percent of us have them. So why does the list of diseases that are deemed “uncoverable” by insurance include diabetes and obesity? Can’t anyone count? We’re easily at 50 percent.

A diabetes disaster is on its way. Don’t count on Oprah to dig us out of it.