Always Ready for Food
¶ Substantial viands can be served to him any hour of the day or night with the certainty of pleasing him. He loves a banquet, provided he is not expected to make a speech. The fat man has a harder time than any other listening to long speeches.
The fashion of trying to mix the two most opposite extremes—food and ideas—and expecting them to go down, was due to our misunderstanding of the real nature of human beings. It is rapidly going out, as must every fashion which fails to take the human instincts into account.
Avoids Sports
¶ No prizes lure a fat man into strenuous physical exercise or violent sports. Although we have witnessed numerous state, national and international tennis, polo, rowing, sprinting, hurdling and swimming contests, we have seen not one player who was fat enough to be included in the pure Alimentive type.
The grand-stands, bleachers and touring cars at these contests contained a generous number of fat people, but their conversation indicated that they were present more from personal interest in some contestant than in the game itself.
The nearest a fat man usually comes to taking strenuous exercise is to drive in an open car. The more easeful that car the better he likes it. He avoids long walks as he would the plague, and catches a street car for a two-block trip.
The Personal Element
¶ Due to his immaturity, the fat person gives little thought to anything save those things which affect him personally.
The calm exterior, unruffled countenance and air of deliberation he sometimes wears, and which have occasionally passed for "judicial" qualities, are largely the results of the fact that the Alimentive refuses to get stirred up over anything that does not concern him personally.