CHAPTER IX.

HOW MUCH FOOD TO TAKE.

Speaking generally, the amount should be sufficient to keep the body well and active, but not to load it up with more than it can get rid of.

[Sidenote: Personal requirements.]

As to the actual amount, there is no guide save that of personal requirements. Some people need more than others, and without any reference to the size of the individual. A little man may easily require twice as much as a big one. It depends on the rate at which his system burns it up. It is of no use, therefore, to judge of our own needs by those of other people. A noted big game hunter is said to be able to take three full-course dinners in immediate succession, without the slightest inconvenience or any apparent detriment to his health. Such persons can be regarded only as freaks, and any attempt on the part of others to imitate their example would lead to disaster. For we could no more follow his lead in this respect than we could do what he is also capable of, namely to go for three days and nights without food or drink, and feel no worse for so doing.

[Sidenote: Appetite.]

Appetite will usually be found a sound guide, provided that it is not satisfied to the point of repletion. It is always well to eat steadily and moderately, following the time-worn plan of rising from the table feeling as if you could eat more. Sometimes a man will sit down as hungry as a hunter, attacking his viands with avidity. Two hours later he wishes that he had not. He has taken more than his digestion can cope with, and the result is that for a day or two afterwards he can scarcely eat anything. If there is an excess of appetite, so to speak, left over, it will keep until the next meal. Regularity in amount, as well as in times of feeding, is essential to health.

As a rule people eat too much, and need to be reminded of the fact, tactfully of course. It is astonishing to watch the improvement in health and energy which often follows a reduction in the amount of food taken. Many listless, tired patients become bright and vigorous after they have been persuaded to adopt this course. It is not uncommon to see thin people who have been overfed by their anxious relatives, and have become sallow and dyspeptic in consequence. In such cases it is difficult to convince the individual himself, and still harder to convince his friends, that he will not become thinner if he takes less food. Yet practical experience has shown that he not only fails to lose weight, but in many cases even puts it on.

A physician once experimented with two men of this type, pallid, seedy young fellows, both of them. He kept them under his care for six months, giving them one-third the amount of food they had been accustomed to, and making them take three times as long in eating it. By the end of that period they had grown into strong, lusty chaps, two stone in weight heavier, and with a fine healthy colouring in their cheeks.

[Sidenote: Excess of food.]

The average diet of the Anglo-Saxon is vastly in excess of his needs. Especially does this refer to the amount of food taken on Sundays. Why we should choose to celebrate the Sabbath by eating more and taking less exercise is a mystery. We often meet with people who complain of feeling “Mondayish,” as they call it. They think it is due to the reaction consequent on resuming the week’s work, whereas it is nothing more than the fact of their having eaten too much on the previous day. For many people who are abstemious enough during the week-days take more at every meal on Sundays. They have something extra for breakfast, and take it at a later hour than usual; they have a hearty dinner midday, and take cake and jam for tea, completing the day by a hearty supper, in which cold meat and pickles generally take a large share. And all “because it is Sunday.”

Now if such persons can be prevailed upon to make a light breakfast, eat moderately at dinner, limit their food at tea to a biscuit or a piece of bread and butter, and finish up with a rational supper, they will find that on Monday mornings they are as fresh as on any other day of the week; in fact, probably much fresher. It would be a good thing for the community if people would make Sunday a day of rest in regard to diet as well as other things.

[Sidenote: Diet at middle age.]

In speaking of butcher’s meat, we pointed out that less of this is necessary in the case of people approaching middle age. The same remark applies, though not with the same urgency perhaps, to food of all sorts. As people grow older the system loses some of its power of throwing off the residue of waste matter, and it is of vital importance, therefore, that people should exercise even more care and discrimination than at any previous period in their lives.

Yet as a rule they tend to eat more rather than less. And the consequent strain upon the system is the starting-point of many a breakdown. For not only is the system less capable of eliminating the waste, but the various organs have less power to support each other when any of them suffer in consequence of the extra effort demanded of them.

[Sidenote: Diet for the obese.]

The question of a suitable diet for stout people is one that bulks largely in the mind of the public to-day. At one time the neurotic patient was always supposed to be thin. It was the fat ones who kept people alive and in a good humour. It was all a myth, of course, and there was no truth in it. It is all very well to talk about “Laugh and grow fat,” but whether fat people are addicted to laughing is another matter. For gradually it began to dawn upon the world that they were rather a heavy, stolid set of folk after all.

Then, to its surprise, it found that stout people are more liable to neurasthenia than thin ones. In any medical paper to-day you are almost sure to see an article on neurasthenia and obesity.

The result of all this has been that there are more people wanting to get thin than thin people desirous of getting stout. The question is how they are to do it. It is generally supposed that it can only be achieved by eating less. This is quite correct in one way. They must eat less, but of certain articles of diet. It does not follow that they must always rise from the table craving for food. It is a healthy custom, as we have pointed out, for people to get up from the table feeling that they could take more, but for some to be doomed constantly to leave their meals as hungry as when they sat down would be a hardship that few would submit to.

Fortunately this is not necessary. It is not so much the quantity of food as its quality which accounts for putting on flesh. There are certain articles which are fattening, not only because of what they consist of in themselves, but also because they tend to make other items give up the fat they contain. The important point is to avoid these foods. It must be made clear, however, that a certain amount of laxity may be allowed. There may be some of Falstaff’s dimensions who may find it necessary to carry out the diet to the letter. It may be a matter of urgency, perhaps of life itself, that they should be brought down in weight, and without any loss of time.

But there are others who feel that a certain reduction is desirable, but not to the same degree as these others. And such people, while following the general principles, need not deny themselves so completely as the stouter ones.

Speaking generally, the foods which tend to put on weight are the starches, such as bread and potatoes, sugars and fats. The following list contains firstly those articles which have this tendency, and then those which can be taken with impunity.

_Articles to be avoided._--Cream and butter. Bread, teacakes, scones and cake of all sorts. Porridge. The fat of bacon, ham or any other meat. Eggs. Red fish, as salmon and mullet. Potatoes, turnips, carrots, parsnips, artichokes and all other root vegetables. Puddings of all kinds. Pastry, sweets, jellies, jam and sugar. Apples, pears and bananas.

_The following may be taken._--Tea and coffee (but not cocoa). Milk in strict moderation. Dry biscuits, such as cracknel. Lean ham, bacon, tongue, white fish, thin soup, fowl and game, and the lean of butcher’s meat. Green vegetables, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, tomatoes, peas, beans, asparagus. Cheese may be permitted in small quantities.

Water should be taken apart from meals. If taken hot before meals it has a reducing and beneficial effect.

It will be seen from this list that there is no reason why anyone wishful to reduce their weight need complain of a lack of food wherewith to satisfy their appetites. Yet, if adhered to, the diet rarely fails to bring about the desired result.