The best way to lose weight is to close your mouth - something very difficult for a politician. Or watch your food - just watch it, don’t eat it.

Koch’s line uses a blunt, comic “diet tip” to satirize political life and human self-control. “Close your mouth” is both literal (eat less) and figurative (stop talking), and the jab that it’s “very difficult for a politician” plays on the stereotype of politicians as compulsive talkers. The follow-up—“watch your food… don’t eat it”—pushes the joke into absurdity, highlighting how simplistic weight-loss advice can sound while acknowledging how hard it is to follow. The humor depends on Koch’s public persona as a sharp, plainspoken New York politician who often mixed civic commentary with one-liners.