HOW IS YOUR FIGURE ?

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume II, Issue 106, 20 April 1912, Page 4 (Supplement)

HOW IS YOUR FIGURE ?

A PRACTICAL HEALTH LESSON. MISS F. CHRISTIAN MILLER is one of the staff of the Conn Institute in London. She was first a pupil, then a teacher, and was finally placed on the staff of advisers of that well-known school for smart women who desire to improve their health and appearance, and for the training of young girls to become beautiful women.

She has been sent by the Conn Institute to America to teach poise and grace, while teaching health. Already she has become the fad in New York, as the Conn Institute is in London. Smart women desiring to improve themselves have gone to her for instruction. Morning lectures at the Waldorf and her drawing-room talks in homes have become features of the fashionable sea-

Nature has given every woman a corset. Lying across the abdomen are four large muscles, whose work is to hold it in and keep it true and straight. I -A... son in New York. Miss Miller, who is a Fellow of the Conn Institute, and entitled to the letters of her degree, has been engaged to write a series oi articles for an American paper: —

BY F. CHRISTIAN MILLER, F.C.I

A noblo Englishman, who had grown from a weakling boy inro a sturdy man, who lived to be eighty, believed that the human race could be made strong and beautiful through right care and exercise of the body. He believed that tho future of the race depended upon the women, because they are its bearers. His slogan throughout the British Empire -was “Give us strong, beautiful women.” He founded an institute to teach women how to make themselves strong and beautiful. It was his bequest to the world. When Sir Frederick M'Coy passed from this world Mrs. Joseph Conn took up his work. The Conn Institute has become a household word in London.

I haye come to this country to spread the principles of that institute. American women I find attractive, indeed charming, but the figure and carriage of many show serious errors. It is my

Noto the body that is held in place by the natural corset, and the one dwarfed by artificial stays.

pnrposo in these articles to point out those faults. We are seeking perfection on both sides of the water, and to point out faults is to bring about perfection.

Many American figures I have seen have three serious faults. Tho abdomen is balloony. The hips are too large. And the body is so laced that the flesh, which has to go somewhere, is pushed up towards the chin, giving the “hunched” look, which is so disfiguring.

Now, as to the first point, the balloony abdomen. No woman can ever bo beautiful, or elegant, who has that paunchy look. If she looks as though a pillow were strapped about her circumference, she is, no matter what her other attractiveness, a sorry sight. And so with what some of you clever Americans have aptly termed the sign of the spreading hips. No woman, no matter how baby-faced, looks young if she has disproportionately large hips. Both of these unsightly appearances must be banished. Tho third point, the pushed-up, hunched look is most unbecoming. That, too, must go. Handsome women I see on your streets look as stiff as a soldier on parade. Their shoulders are too high. And they move as though walk-

ing were not the fine, free exercise it is, but an effort that must be, some how, gotten through. What is the cause of all this? Corsets. And I plead for their banishment. I should like to see them banished from the young girl’s wardrobe. If a woman over thirty has worn corsets since she was a young girl, she must keep on wearing them. But if the young girl be trained in time, beginning, say, when she is fourteen, there will be absolutely no need of her ever wearing them.

For nature has given every woman a coiset. If she takes care of that she never needs any other. Round about the abdomen, lying diagonally across it, are firm, large muscles, whose work is to' hold in the abdomen, and keep it fine and straight. But few women know about this corset, and some ignore it. What-is the result of this? The abdomen muscles that are not used weaken. Fat forms in the weakest parts. Therefore, tho unpleasantly protruding abdomen and the ever-widening hips.

Now, how to prevent this? I was once the victim of suchi accumulation of flesh. I weighed two hundred and twenty-four pounds. In six months of training down, by exercise alone, I reduced my weight to one hundred and fifty-four, where it has remained for three years. It is as low as I wish it to be, because I believe that a woman should have curving hips. In other words, a man’s ground plan is the pyramid, or wedge, while a woman’s is a succession of soft curves.

One of the exercises that rapidly lessens most figures that are of too generous size about the middle is that of pushing. Fancy yourself lifting a piano, if that were possible. Or imagine yourself pulling a tight cork from a bottle. What would you do? Lean forward and pull with all your might, would you not? Suppose you are doing either. Use your strength and what happens? Y T ou will feel the’muscles of the abdomen tighten, as though strong hands were pressing down upon it. '

At the same time that you are trying to lift the imaginary piano or pulling the cork from the bottle of your fancy, you will find yourself drawing deep breaths from the very pit of your abdomen. That, too, contracts the balloony abdomen. In a word, it tightens the laces and hardens the whalebones of nature’s corset.

Rolling has the same effect, but do not roll until you have had physician’s consent. For if your heart is weak rolling might be most dangerous. Walking is of dubious value in reviiring the paunchy outline. It is of value in the sense that fast walking r ouses you to breathe more and take more oxygen into the body. The more oxygen there is taken into the body the more quickly the fat vanishes. M. ch walking produces an appet te that one desire and consume more f< od.

Stretching and kicking are each most valuable for bringing, the middle of the figure back to its original girlish outlines. You know how, when you are tired, you yawn and stretch, and how delightful is the sensation. Stretch and yawn and notice how the muscles of the abdomen tighten. Again nature’s corset is being drawn up and tightened. Kicking in any way you like has the same effect. While you are sitting on a couch or lying in bed, or resting tn a rocking-chair, or standing, kick with little spiteful motions, or with long, swinging movement, or with waggish little side motions —but kick.

And while you are sitting sit upright. Never lounge. The moment you lop in your chair the abdomen is thrust forward. The muscles sag. Nature’s corset strings are loosened, and you have started on the way to what you Americans forcibly, if not elegantly, describe as a “sloppy figure.” Lest you may not quite accept what I, a stranger, tell you, may I quote to you what W. Arbuthnott Lane.Nhe famous British surgeon, says of nature’s corset ?

“Tho most effectual means of keeping the viscera in the right place and properly packed is to exercise a sufficient pressure, exerted appropriately on the lower abdomen. The English corset io disastrous, for i: exaggerates the downward displacement of the viscera.”