Obesity
To say that obesity is caused merely by consuming too many calories is like saying that the only cause of the American Revolution was the Boston Tea Party. There are many causes. One, I suspect, is that our foods are so depleted of the nutrients which starved bodies crave that overeating is due to a physiological compulsion to obtain them; even that usually fails to supply the nutrients longed for by the tissues. Another cause is that people often eat too little rather than too much; the basal metabolism drops far below normal; there is no energy for work or play, none to be turned into heat. When few calories are used, few are needed. Such people sit, sluggish as lizards sunning themselves, gaining weight on tiny meals and becoming more miserable with each added pound.
If an improved nutrition program does not cause you to lose weight, I would say that the program is not adequate for you or that you should go to a psychiatrist for help.
Another reward of nutrition is gaining weight, if that is desired. In the spring of 1932 I planned a diet for a man who weighed 121 pounds and who wanted so much to gain weight; that fall he asked for a reducing diet. Not long afterward, an extremely tall, ill man came to see me; he then weighed 155 pounds and he, too, wished to gain. A year or so later he weighed 210 pounds and wanted to reduce. I still know both of these men. Although gaining was no problem and a “reducing diet” was planned for each of them, neither has reduced.
For years I have refused to make out a gaining diet for anyone. When faulty digestion and absorption are corrected, when nerves and muscles are relaxed to the extent that energy is no longer needlessly wasted and sound sleep is induced, the underweight person gains easily without increasing his calorie intake. A gaining diet usually causes him to put on too much weight.
There is another problem which almost invariably disappears if nutrition is taken seriously over a considerable length of time. For me, the most striking example of this problem is a woman I saw first when she was twenty-nine. She was underweight, pale, and listless; her hair was stringy; tension lines cut her forehead; and fatigue was stamped on her face. Her blood count and blood pressure were both low. She had trouble with constipation and hemorrhoids and was “miserable from gas.” The radio and youngsters made her “fly off the handle.” She had severe headaches about twice a week. My notes say, “Can’t sleep; stays up all night at least once each week to be sure she can sleep the next night.” She told of several miscarriages. Because of tumors her uterus had been removed shortly before I saw her.
Three years later, when this same woman came to a series of lectures I was giving, she had become my idea of genuine beauty. She reminded me of a race horse being held back at the starting line. Her eyes were bright and flashing, her skin had both color and glow, her figure was the kind any woman might envy. Her hair was resilient and amazingly alive. Her face was animated; it glowed with health even in repose. After these lectures, a group of us often went to her home for “coffee,” meaning a near-smorgasbord of cold meats, cheeses, and dark breads. I usually sat watching her, fascinated. Every time I saw her, I asked myself how any person could have met her and not been immediately struck by her beauty. I knew the answer perfectly well. When I first saw this woman, she was not beautiful: she was pale and listless; her hair was stringy; tension lines cut her forehead; and fatigue was stamped on her face.
Too much “beauty” is only cosmetic-deep, though that is better than no beauty at all. The person who is satisfied with cosmetic-deep beauty, in my opinion, has low standards.
Beauty should be at least vivacity-deep. It is better still if it can be both vivacity-deep and character-deep. Before I die, I hope mine can be soul-deep. Sound nutrition is absolutely essential for vivacity-deep beauty, a form of beauty which, I believe, any semi-healthy individual at any age can have provided it is wanted badly enough. When persons are seriously malnourished, as far too many of them are, those who could have character-deep beauty are often so ill and mentally confused and self-centered because of their illnesses that they fail to achieve this higher form of beauty. When malnutrition is severe, it prevents the serenity and calmness which in my opinion are essential ingredients of that rare and intangible quality I think of as soul beauty.
Another problem which often disappears after dietary improvement has to do with sexuality. Let us grant that perhaps 95 per cent of such problems are psychological, and consider only those which may be nutritional. Probably every nutrient plays some role in stimulating normal hormone production or in maintaining the health of the prostate, the uterus, and the penial and vaginal passages, all essential before mate relationships can be fulfilling.