Diets for Men

Who rates the space on "front page" these days?

The slim, sweet thing of those laced-in stays? . . .

A Truman letter, the state of the nation Must wait to hear Fat Elmer's ration.

So rhapsodized a Kansas City Star reader about the most popular feature the Star has ever run: Elmer Wheeler's "Fat Boy's" diet series. The doggerel pinned down a fact that was astounding editors across the U.S. last week. Reducing diets for men have become so popular that they are displacing Page One news stories.

Magazines have long suspected something like this was stirring; they have been getting an extraordinary response to diet stories. Look was deluged with thousands of inquiries on its "basic American diet" in January. Holiday served up its eat-all-you-want Du Pont diet (meat three times daily, plenty of fat, no sugar, salt or flour, half an hour prebreakfast walk) last summer, reprinted it last month and claimed the largest response "to a food story in magazine history."

Out Front. But it was the Chicago Daily News which first tried the Fat Boy's diet for men, and thus traced the big pull to the American male and to the wives and secretaries who were worried about his figure. In January, the News gave the diet a routine run on the women's page until the Fat Boy offered a "slide rule for reducing,"--i.e., a vest-pocket chart which lists the calories in popular foods. The demand for the chart was so heavy (total: 87,596) that the News bannered the series on Page One. By last week, the Fat Boy had spread to 77 daily newspapers ranging from the North Bay (Ont.) Nugget (circ. 10,217) to the New York Journal-American (circ. 724,729) The Journal gave Elmer eight-column headlines on Page One, appointed its fattest reporter, 243-lb. Syd Livingston, to provide local color stories. (He refused to go on the diet himself.) Promotion Manager Ed Templin of the Lexington (Ky.) Leader and Herald was on a diet himself when he heard about the series, promptly grabbed it. The Kansas City Star's local 'fat boy" (250-lb.), President Roy Roberts, declined to try the diet but sadly autographed staffers' Fat Boy's calorie charts with the words, "How true, how true."

Horrible Example. The man who so unerringly kicked his fellow males in the breadbasket is Elmer Wheeler, 47-year-old professional phrasemaker and hustler of slick selling techniques. Salesman Elmer who weighed 234 pounds (see cut), was shocked into dieting last year after a Dallas department-store salesman waved him into the "fat men's section" for a new shirt: He took off 40 pounds in 80 days and wrote a book, The Fat Boy's Book (Prentice-Hall; $2), which sold lethargically until General Features, a lusty young feature service, chopped it into 19 pieces lor newspaper syndication. In a humorous vein Wheeler plants his diet tips ("I put a halt to salt"), generously allows his readers to balance their calories over three-day periods so they have time to do penance for bursts of overindulgence. Instead of frowning on high-calorie alcohol, Elmer simply warns against sweet mixes' and high-proof liquor ("for every proof add a calorie"). Those who can't keep count of drinks should pocket a match with every drink, count the toll next morning.

Said Wheeler: "It's no longer true that no one loves a fat man but his mother. All editors do."

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