THE CASE OF MRS. PLENTEOUS
So far we’ve been appealing to your good looks. Here goes for a try at your good sense. (You must have some, or you wouldn’t still be reading.) We refer to good sense about health.
Some women are beautiful, some are healthy, some are both, and some are neither. And into the last class fall (or roll) the definitely overweight.
Now you’re going to cry, “Nonsense! Look at Mrs. Plenteous; she’s enormous, and as healthy as a horse.”
Well, we don’t know Mrs. Plenteous personally, but we’ll take your word that she’s a human being, and as such she was never intended to be enormous. She was made according to a careful pattern that hasn’t varied in thousands of years, by an expert designer who put strength and usefulness and beauty into his designs. Mrs. Plenteous has the regulation number of bones, muscles, and vital organs (barring operations). None of them is enormous. Each was built to carry around a certain weight without undue strain. If Mrs. Plenteous is enormous, her organs are carrying around an enormous strain. They can take it—for a while—and they will—for a while. But Mrs. Plenteous is not really healthy, she’s just lucky—so far.