Stiles, Percy Goldthwaite: Nutritional Physiology, N. B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia and London, 1912.
Tigerstedt, Robert: A Text-Book of Human Physiology, D. Appleton & Company, New York and London, 1906, third German edition, translated by John N. Murlin.
Taylor, Alonzo Englebert: Digestion and Metabolism, Lea & Febiger, Philadelphia and New York, 1912.
Von Noorden, Carl: Metabolism and Practical Medicine, William Heinemann, London, 1907.
SECTION II
NOTES ON OVERWEIGHT AND UNDERWEIGHT
How many people after age 35 have a conformation of body that is in accord with proper ideals of health and symmetry? The average individual, as age progresses, gains weight until he reaches old age, when the weight usually decreases.
This movement of weight is so universal that it has been accepted as normal, or physiological, whereas it is not normal, and is the result of disease-producing and life-shortening influences.
The standards for weight at the various ages and heights have been established by life insurance experience, but these standards, which show an increase in weight as age advances, by no means reflect the standards of health and efficiency. They merely indicate the average condition of people accepted for life insurance, whose death rate—while covered by life insurance premiums—is yet far above that obtaining among people of the best physical type, who live a thoroughly hygienic life.