THE MIDDLE AGED SPREAD

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 628, 3 April 1929, Page 5

THE MIDDLE AGED SPREAD

WHY TRY TO AVOID IT? j “Oh, d"v»r, 1 wish 1 had your outj line,” sighed the frankly middle-aged woman to the tall, slim creature of j about the same age. [ Regarding them both from an unj biassed point of view, I saw one as a 1 straight line with a few angles and a hatchet face, and the other as a soft rounded curve, with an oval, almost | unlined face. From the “natural” ! point of view, the stout one was much i the better looking; y-et she was beI moaning her fate because Fashion, outraging Nature, had decreed that her figure was not "correct.” It is foolish to dread, or try to postpone, the most comfortable time in life, when a girlish figure tends to spread into comfortable matronly lines. Far better to spread than shrink into angularity—and one or the other is inevitable. There are too many straight-line figures, too many “greyhound women,” as Arlen calls them; and the time cannot be far distant when the plump matron will come into her own again and be regarded with envy by her bustless, hipless sisters. In any case, it is useless and unhealthy to attempt to curb the spreading lines. Nature knows what she’is doing, and if the years have brought a healthy abundance of flesh, what can we do about it? To enclose a spreading figure in a tight case is to court disaster physically; to drug in an attempt to reduce the “too, too solid flesh” is even worse! When we have passed the mental and physical angularity of youth, we must become middle-aged. Middle age is the half-way house between the hard, quick intolerance of youth and the easy drifting of age. We should make the most of what is really the best time of our lives, and be content to “spread" both mentally and physically. Then would our spreading brains have a saner, healthier outlook, and our spreading forms appear more pleasing. E.H.