Advantages Of A Slight Weight Surplus

( Originally Published 1929 )

IT is not smart, sensible or healthy to be too thin. A dietetic middle ground must be followed or else the fundamentals of health and beauty will be jeopardized.

The peak of the over-reducing mania has been passed. Women are becoming aware of the dangers of over-reduction and the advantages in good looks and physical fitness of having the scales balance slightly on the side of over-weight rather than on the side of under-weight. You see fewer underweight flappers today than two or three years ago. And people are beginning to realize that as you get older the bones tend to get larger; this is particularly true of the bony framework of the hips.

A slight surplus increases your resistance to disease and gives you greater endurance.

But do not be misled by the clever advertisements of those interested in increasing the consumption of sweets and sweetening materials. These are just the things to take in minimal quantities. Eat more vegetables, milk, cereals, and fruits to keep your weight optimal. Remember that nature has supplied most of these foods with simple biological sugars and also that all the starch in these foods is converted by your own digestive apparatus into the kind of sugar your body most needs.

In diet as well as all things remember the truth of the old Latin proverb--"Beati media tenere." (The happy keep to the middle course.)