Most people still fail to apprehend the baneful significance of overweight, and by many it is generally accepted as the inevitable - associate of increasing age. There is also much popular misconception as regards the question of age. The number of calendar years survived is) by no means a reliable index to one's physical age. A man of 50 may be as young physically as a man of 40, or vice versa. What determines the physical age of an individual and his prospects of longevity are chiefly heredity, environment and_ habits. these heredity and.environment have a decreasing influence with increase in age, whilst the opposite is true as regards habits, which by the age of about 4Q have become more or less fixed. The mental attitude toward them is now complacent acceptance, whereas earlier in life ambition and idealism might have striven to curb them if reason so dictated. Practically all expert observers will ree to the statement that the habits of one who has survived the earlier adult ages constitute the chief factor in determining the subsequent duration of his life from premature decay to a ripe old age with many years of well-preserved mental and physical vigour.
We have seen by the remarkable statistic' quoted in - this. letter that overweight is- significant of early physical degeneration, and of all the bad habits which tend fo shorten life, none is so bad as that of overindulgence in eating and drinking, and more particularly the former, of which overweight is the almost inevitable result. Almost all adults consume many times daily more than the amount of food actually required to keep them in good © health, and itis over-eating that probably contributes more large than any other cause to early old age. Indeed, it has een truly said that we dig our graves with our teeth.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.