VICTIM TO FASHION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21136, 19 March 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

VICTIM TO FASHION.

FATAL "SLIMMING" EXERCISE.

YOUNG WOMAN STRANGLED.

WEIGHT-REDUCTION PRACTICES.

The .belief that a " slimming" exercise caused the death recently of Miss Evelyn Rouse, a 31-year-old sportswoman, of Pyrford, Surrey, has reawakened discussion concerning the dangers involved in uncontrolled weight reduction.

" Women who are over-stout will do anything to become slim," a masseuse who specialises in the treatment of obesity told a Daily Mail reporter. " Many women," she said, " have taken to doing various kinds of exercises at home. They go in for skipping, rolling themselves on the floor, and other violent actions which may prove exceedingly dangerous in cases of heart weakness. " Stout women should never attempt to exert themselves in this fashion unless they have been medically examined and found —especially so far as their heart is concerned —to be able to do so without danger." Sir Arbuthnot Lane, the president of the New Health Society, said: "It seems that women will go to any lengths to make themselves more attractive, either resorting to violent exercises or almost starving themselves to death. Large numbers attempt to do their own weight-reducing

without obtaining proper advice—and that is where the perils of 4 slimming ' come in. " Weight-reducing can be dona quite simply and perfectly safely by commonsense dieting—not starving. I know a sensible woman who keeps her weight steadily to within an ounce of what she requires it to be. She does this by eating little of foods containing starch and sugar, such as white bread, potatoes, butter, cream and sweets, but of most other things she eats freely. It is possible to eat as much as one desires and yet be dieting effectually." x Miss House was found sitting in her night clothes at the foot of her bed with one end of a scarf tied round her neck and the other end round a bed post. Miss Kathleen Rouse said at the inquest, that her sister had no love affairs and no worries apart from the fact that she was extremely stout and conscious of it. She dreaded getting fatter. "Wo had all been dieting recently, and my sister had lost a lot and was rather pleased about it," added Miss Rouse. "I can only think 1 * that when she met her death she was trying to massage her neck with the scarf and slipped. She was always trying things to reduce. She told a friend that she always went to bed with a scarf around her neck."

Dr. Thomas Haines Sims, who was called to the house, agreed that the dead woman probably strangled herself accidentally while trying a slimming exercised "lam told by a masseur that neck exercises with a scarf do exist," said Dr. Sims. " You tie the scarf round the neck and a fixed object, and roll the neck to massage it.. I think the exercise would, in the ordinary way, be dono ill a standing position or in a chair." The coroner, Mr. G. Wills Taylor, remarked that it was a dangerous practice. " The slightest loss of balance and you would bo strangled." Dr. Sims: "It's most dangerous." There was 110 evidence, he said, that Miss Bouse intended to do herself any harm. He recorded a verdict that death, due to asphyxia, was caused by misadventure.