The person who habitually overeats is always looking for an alibi. He points to someone else who eats a great deal and doesn’t get fat; then he argues that his own body is different and that he absorbs where the other does not. I have seen a fat woman eating one chocolate cream after another while complaining sadly: “Everything I eat turns to fat.” People do differ as to the extent to which their bodies will take up fat stores, and people also differ in their basal metabolic rates. Rarely however is overweight due to glandular deficiencies. The glands are more concerned with the areas of the body in which the fat is deposited-for instance, female hips, breasts and buttocks-the male jowls and paunch -than with overweight as a whole. Certain diseases with degeneration of important glands may be accompanied by weight increase. However, Dr. George Thorn says: “Many endocrine disturbances result from rather than cause obesity.”
Everybody knows the obvious difficulties of the body associated with overweight. Fat people get out of breath, get tired easily and have pain in the joints of the knees, hips, and lower back. Fat people can’t stand hot weather, they get more headaches, irritations of the skin and digestive disturbances. Fat women have more trouble with gall-bladder difficulties, diabetes, blood pressure and disturbances of their periodic functions than do thin women. The gall bladder patient is frequently the fat woman who is fair, over forty, and who has had four pregnancies.
All authorities are now agreed that the proper way to reduce weight is to lessen the intake of food below the amount needed for the individual’s energy. However, any person must still get the essential protein, vitamin and mineral substances necessary to maintain health.