Facts About Overweight No Need For Pills And Violent Exercising

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 48, 21 May 1948, Page 7

Facts About Overweight No Need For Pills And Violent Exercising

(By the Department of Health)

' Fat is an excellent thing, in the right place. But excessive fat on our bodies is directly and indirectly responsible for much disability and illness.

If you doubt that, let’s have a look at what the life insurance companies think about it. In a study of more than 200,000 lives, the statistician for one big life insurance company in America found that life expectancy decreased as weigh increased. For each 10 per cent increase in overweight, mortality increases 20 per cent over the normal expectancy and in the group 25 per cent overweight and more, the mortality is ’a formidable 175 per cent of the normal rate. The conditions from which overweight people are most likely to die are heart disease, kidney disease, strokes and diabetes, which occur two and a half times as often among people 25 per cent overweight as among those of normal weight at the same age. If you’re seriously bulgy, there is, in nearly every case something you can do about it without taking pills, violent exercise or excessive laxatives; none of these do any lasting good for overweight people, and are just as likely to do harm. The thing is to eat less of the foods that make for overweight. Fundamentally, nearly everybody who has become fat has been eating too much without regard for the needs of the human body. A .good doctor can give you a diet that will feed you well without feeding you too well or making you feel a martyr. .«You can get used to less food quite easily if you have the urge. And don’t be in a hurry to reduce your excess fat. Two pounds a week is enough, over a long period, without shocking your system.