is rapidly disappearing from the fat man’s glass.
The Deep Mystery
“What do you suppose is making me so plump?” naively inquires the fat man when it finally occurs to him—as it did to his friends long before—that he is surely and speedily taking on flesh.
If you don’t know the answer, look at the table of any fat person in any restaurant, café or dining room. He is eating with as much enthusiasm as if he had just been rescued from a forty-day fast, instead of having only a few hours before looked an equally generous meal in the eye and put it all under his belt. The next time you are at an American plan hotel where meals are restricted to certain hours note how the fat people are always the first ones into the dining room when the doors are opened!
Fat-Making Foods
Butter, olive oil, cream, pastry and starches are foods that increase your weight just as fast as you eat them, if your assimilative system is anything like it should be. Though he is the last man in the world who ought to indulge in them the fat man likes these foods above all others and when compelled to have a meal without them feels as though he hadn’t eaten at all.
Why They Don’t Lose Weight
We had a friend who decided to reduce. But in spite of the fact that she lived on salads almost exclusively for a week she kept right on gaining. We thought she had been surreptitiously treating herself to lunches between meals until some one noticed the dressing with which she drowned her lettuce: pure olive oil—a cupful at a sitting—“because,” she said “I must have something tasty to camouflage the stuff.”
An Experiment
Once in California, where no city block is complete without its cafeteria, we took a committee from one of our Human Analysis classes to six of these big establishments one noontime. To illustrate to them the authenticity of the facts we have stated above we prophesied what the fat ones would select for their meals.
Without exception their trays came by heaped with pies, cake, cream, starchy vegetables and meat, just as we predicted.
A Short Life But a Merry One
According to the statistics of the United States Life Insurance Companies fat people die younger than others. And the Insurance Companies ought to know, for upon knowing instead of guessing what it is that takes us off, depends the whole life insurance business. That they consider the extremely fat man an unsafe risk after thirty years of age is a well-known fact.
“I am interrupted every day by salesmen for everything on earth except one. But the life insurance agents leave me alone!” laughed a very fat young lawyer friend of ours the other morning—and he went on ordering ham and eggs, waffles, potatoes and coffee!
That he is eating years off his life doesn’t trouble the fat man, however. He has such a good time doing it!
“I Should Worry,” Says the Fat Man
It was no accident that “Ish ka bibble” was invented by the Hebrew. For this race has proportionately more fat people in it than any other and fat people just naturally believe worry is useless. But the fat man gets this philosophy from the same source that gives him most of his other traits—his predominating system.
Digestion and Contentment
The eating of delicious food is one of the most intense and poignant pleasures of life. The digestion of food, when one possesses the splendid machinery for it which characterizes the Alimentive, gives a deep feeling of serenity and contentment.
Since the fat man is always just going to a big meal or in the process of digesting one he does not give himself a chance to become ill natured. His own and the world’s troubles sit lightly upon him.
The Most Popular Type Socially
“The life of the party” is the fat man or that pleasing, adaptable, feminine creature, the fat woman. No matter what comes or goes they have a good time and it is such an infectious one that others catch it from them.
Did you ever notice how things pick up when the fat ones appear? Every hostess anticipates their arrival with pleasure and welcomes them with relief. She knows that she can relax now, and sure enough, Fatty hasn’t his hat off till the atmosphere shows improvement. By the time Chubby gets into the parlor and passes a few of her sunny remarks the wheels are oiled for the evening and they don’t run down till the last plump guest has said good night.
So it is no wonder that fat people spend almost every evening at a party. They get so many more invitations than the rest of us!
Likes Complacent People
People who take things as they find them are the ones the Alimentive prefers for friends, not only because, like the rest of us, he likes his own kind of folks, but because the other kind seem incongruous to him. He takes the attitude that resistance is a waste of energy. He knows other and easier ways of getting what he desires.
There are types who take a lively interest in those who are different from them, but not the Alimentive. He prefers easy-going, hospitable, complacent friends whose homes and hearts are always open and whose minds run on the simple, personal things.
The reason for this is obvious. All of us like the people, situations, experiences and environments which bring out our natural tendencies, which call into play those reflexes and reactions to which we tend naturally.
Chooses Food-Loving Friends
“Let’s have something to eat” is a phrase whose hospitality has broken more ice and warmed more hearts than any other, unless perchance that rapidly disappearing “let’s have something to drink.” The fat person keeps at the head of his list those homey souls who set a good table and excel in the art of third and fourth helpings.
Because he is a very adaptable sort of individual this type can reconcile himself to the other kind whenever it serves his purpose. But the tenderest spots in his heart are reserved for those who encourage him in his favorite indoor sport.
When He Doesn’t Like You
A fat man seldom dislikes anybody very hard or for very long.
Really disliking anybody requires the expenditure of a good deal of energy and hating people is the most strenuous work in the world. So the Alimentive refuses to take even his dislikes to heart. He is a consistent conserver of steam and this fact is one of the secrets of his success.
He applies this principle to everything in life. So he travels smoothly through his dealings with others.
Holds Few Grudges
“Forget it” is another phrase originated by the fat people. You will hear them say it more often than any other type. And what is more, they excel the rest of us in putting it into practice. The result is that their nerves are usually in better working order. This type runs down his batteries less frequently than any other.
Avoids the “Ologists”
When he takes the trouble to think about it there are a few kinds of people the Alimentive does not care for. The man who is bent on discussing the problems of the universe, the highbrow who wants to practise his new relativity lecture on him, the theorist who is given to lengthy expatiations,
