GROWING AVOIRDUPOIS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20372, 28 September 1929, Page 7 (Supplement)

GROWING AVOIRDUPOIS.

BY A SPECIALIST.

WHY IT MAY HAPPEN.

Health writers are giving much advice en the dangers of over-eating. The advice, naturally, is along the line of diet. You are advised not to eat too much bread, pastry, potatoes, starches, of nil kinds. You aro advised also to limit the fat eaten, as this helps to make flesh by preventing wear and tear on tho tissues of the body. You are also advised to limit the fluids.

Now, this is all good sense, but two nthcr essential factors enter into this matter.

I was in tho country a few months c go t/ and remarked to :i farmer that a certain number of pigs had put on- considerable weight during the preceding few weeks.

Yes," ho said, " (hey aro sleeping « great deal now, and don't run about bo much."

Why don't they run about so Much?"

" Because they are so heavy now that it tires them to move about, so they just eat and sleep, and are getting heavy fast."

tins farmer said ho was not feeding the pigs any more than ho did when they were small; in fact was not feeding them quite as much, and yet tlioy were putting on weight at a rnoro rapid rate than at any tnno previously. Why ? •

Because they wore now so heavy they did not want lo move around, and slept most of the time

' T helicvo you sco the point clearly enough. ¥ou and I, if we aro the weight-gain-ing, healthy type, must remember that rest has exactly the same effect upon us ts food.

Evan if wo rut down on our food, and then rost all night and a good part of the day, we cannot expect to lose much Weight, as the hodv uses up only about one-lifth as much food-stuff—food and oxygen—when we are lying down as when we are walking about, doing some work, fr taking exercise. j'.'ii can readily see, then, how quickly weight, can be cut off if, in addition to cutting down on our food, we cut down on our hours of rest and increase our hours of activity Further, Ion'; at the muscular strength and increaso in well-being that conio by replacing fat with muscle