Gluttony & Glamour

In the long, cold winter evenings, the people of northern Europe have lots of time to think. This year lots of Swedes, Danes and Finns are brooding over self-betterment.

In Sweden, it is smiles. Bonniers, largest publishing firm in Sweden, is sponsoring a smiles campaign which is calculated to brighten the sunless months. The Bonniers motto, plastered on walls and repeated in the newspapers: "Visa solsidan" (Show sunny side).

Denmark has a more ambitious campaign. A series of ten radio talks, including some by beauty specialists and doctors, urges Danes to "look better." Fanny Jensen, Cabinet Minister Without Portfolio (in practice, minister for women's affairs), began the series two weeks ago. Looking neat but not gaudy, 59-year-old Minister Jensen gave good reason for her advice. Said she: "When I was working in a factory, nobody gave us any advice how to keep looking young and pretty, although the bosses always chose the best-looking girls for the jobs."

But top bidder for self-improvement this year is Finland. Long worried about their manners, particularly the knife-brandishing belligerence of Finnish drunks, the Finns last month stepped up their courtesy campaign. Run by the serious "Citizens' Good Behavior Organization," the drive is aimed at making "the common Finn a gentleman" in time for the Olympic Games in 1952. In addition, Finland has decided on an anti-gluttony campaign. Insurance company surveys show that during the food-short war years, the people were healthier than before. But Finns have not taken the hint. Said Tailor Eirik Dronstedt, who has been busy since the Christmas holidays letting out seams: "About 90% of my customers have gotten fatter in the last two years. I can only remember one who has gotten thinner, and he was a man returning from his honeymoon."

Skeptics thought that self-improvement would thaw in warmer weather. But optimists remembered the words of Finland's famed writer Aleksis Kivi: "If we once start on the job, we'll stick to it with clenched teeth." In Helsinki's Parliament Building last week, Finns jammed a meeting of the Anti-Obesity Association. President Yrjo Simila had clenched his teeth, dieted from 240 to 180 Ibs., and was feeling like a new man.

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