Heredity.—In the matter of bodily health and vigor, the sins of the parents are visited upon the children. What narrow-mindedness the father displays, therefore, in devoting himself so assiduously to business as to neglect his health, and to entail upon his sons and daughters such a low standard of vitality as to impair their usefulness in life, and to deprive them of the power to enjoy, as they should, the inheritance he hopes to leave them.
Exercise for the Stout, the Thin, and the Old.—It may seem somewhat paradoxical that the same means that are employed to increase flesh and weight should also be recommended to reduce obesity. There is a difference, however, between superfluous fat and solid, healthy, active muscle.
The Stout.—It is a well known fact that persons of moderate weight, in preparing for some unusual or extraordinary test of strength, reduce their flesh and toughen their muscles by a course of severe training. It is not an uncommon thing for college crews to reduce their weights, by a month’s training, twelve pounds per man. A prize fighter will often come down thirty or forty pounds in preparing for a contest. An instance is cited of a student, who, after carefully weighing himself, sat down to a fifty-five pound rowing-weight, pulled forty-five full strokes a minute for twenty minutes, then, with the same clothing as before, weighed himself, and found he had lost one pound.
Many men, and women, too, if persuaded that there was, at hand, a convenient and comparatively easy method of ridding themselves of their burden of flesh, would doubtless avail themselves of it. The following well authenticated cases may be suggestive and helpful. A young lady, inclined to fleshiness, by vigorous horseback riding, reduced her weight twenty-five pounds in one year. A policeman, whose weight was three hundred and fifteen pounds, took a position as stoker on a war vessel. The exercise, coupled with the free perspiration induced by labor in the heated quarters, lowered his weight to one hundred and eighty-four pounds. A man in middle life, whose occupation was a sedentary one, and whose weight, over three hundred pounds, was a source of great discomfort, resolved to try what exercise would do. Being much engrossed through the day, he began by taking long, brisk walks in the evening. Soon he was able to cover five miles at a fairly good pace. Whatever the state of the weather, and however tired he might be with the day’s exacting duties, he suffered nothing to interfere with his evening walk. He gradually increased the pace and the distance, and, with little or no change in his diet, in five months he had taken off ninety pounds. He says that he often perspired so freely that, in cold weather, small icicles were formed on the ends of his hair. Free perspiration is a necessary element in the rapid reduction of flesh. The fat-producing foods should be avoided as far as possible.
While exercise is one of the best means of reducing superfluous fat, there is no class of persons more loath to take exercise than the obese. The reasons are largely physiological. The greater weight is a burden to carry. The muscular tissues have in part changed to fat, and are therefore less able to do their work. The action of the lungs and the heart is interfered with by the pressure of the fat, and the individual quickly becomes exhausted and short of breath. There is the greater demand, therefore, on the part of those who incline to obesity, to exercise with determined persistency and regularity, in order to reduce their weight. Exercises involving quickness of movement, and a degree of mental activity, are the best.
The Thin.—The old proverb says: “It is a poor rule that will not work both ways.” Judged by this standard, the rule of exercise must be a good one, for the instances of lean arms and legs filled out, and of scrawny necks and hollow shoulders made round and plump by exercise, outnumber the other ten to one.
Many lean persons, impressed with the apparent discomfort and inconvenience of obesity, are content with their slender measure of flesh. This is especially true of men, who, as a rule, have less regard for beauty of form than those of the other sex. They overlook the fact that the man whose bony structure is well overlaid with thick layers of healthy muscular tissue is able not only to accomplish more work, but to stand greater exposure and endure more hardships than the lean man. His stronger, heavier muscles will not only carry his greater weight with less effort, but his larger body will possess a momentum that the other man does not have.
In the severe training preceding the inter-collegiate boat races, while the over fleshy lose their superfluous fat, the thin gain as rapidly in weight. Many lean people whose occupations are of a physical nature do too much, daily, in proportion to their strength. Mind and body are kept in such a constant state of activity that their energies become exhausted. If such persons will take an occasional rest through the day, when it is possible so to do, and will add an hour or more to the period of sleep, their weight will soon begin to increase. Then, by special exercises aimed at the weak points, and persistently sustained, the gain in weight will be that of solid, healthy, muscular tissue, which will not only fill out their leanness, but will give them power to do more work with less fatigue.
A short rest after meals, with the practice of deep abdominal breathing, begun, if need be, as a special drill, but ultimately established as a habit, will go far toward improving the digestion and converting the food into good, healthy blood, so indispensable to the growth of every part of the human body.