ON GETTING FAT.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXI, Issue 158, 30 January 1889, Page 5

ON GETTING FAT.

Is there any harm in getting fat ? So far as longed 1 y is concerned, says a writer iv tho " Nineteenth Century," ifc m-iy be some comfort to many to know that the tables of some of the life insurance offices sh -w that it is better to ba much above the average weight thau much below it; but it is be3t to be neither! Apart from the very inconsiderable inconvenience it gives rise to— to leave se3thet<c considerations out of the question— no doubt a great excess of weight due to an increased formation of fat ?8 an abnormality closely bordering on d'seaso. As any rate, in almost every ca^e it may be said to point to the consumdlion of a huitful excess of food of some kind. Fat persons who wish to get thinner should realise this facr. It ia useless to proclaim that they do not eat more than others ; excess of fafc can only b e ma d e from excess of food, and it has been very pertinently pointed out that a daily deposit of a quarter of an ounce of fat will in ten years increa3e the weight of the body by fifty-seven pounds ; and the familiar process of fattening animals for purposea of food should teach us how rapidly fat can be deposited in the animal body when appropriate food is taken. The only easy and practical test is the relation of wuightto age and height. A man sft 7n in height and thirty years of a/c ought to wei <h from lOat to lOat 10lb ; at forty y.-n s0? age the average weight is about the same ; at 6fty it is a little less, at sixty st'l! Irss, and at seventy considerably less. A woman sft 2in in height should weigh, at thirty years of age, from 7st Bbs to Bst ; at forty she will be 2ib3 heavier ; at fifty nearly 4 bs heavier ; at c xiy she should be about the z*m* weight a* at thirty, and she should set lighter as she grows olde*.

E >c every additional inch of haMit you must add slbs to the weight, so 1 hat a man thirty yesrs of a- ? o and 6ft high may weigh from list lltbs to 12st 7lbß. Th-sa are, of course, merely working averages, prepared for such purpoees as that of life ffssurauce. If a man comes to exceed these averages by more than a stone, he may be said to be getting too fj.fc, unlesa theve are other considerations, such as original or inhsri'od conformation, to account for it.