34 Million Fatties

Across the U.S. last week, more people than ever were bulging with excess fat--and ready to admit it. Forty-five percent of the women said so in a Gallup poll, 25% of the men. (Not that men are really slimmer, say doctors; they are just slower to face the fat facts.) By their own say-so, the overweight add up to a whopping 34 million--or a good many more than the 25 million figure which has sometimes been accepted as a rough estimate by life insurance companies.

Moreover, partly from vanity ("How will I look in a bathing suit this summer?"), partly from the reiterated warning that excess poundage shortens life, more Americans than ever are struggling to reduce.

Hot Water & Lemon. At a ranch outside Phoenix last week, Elizabeth Arden's carriage-trade customers were getting a full course of beauty treatments, including slimming, for $500 a week. At Kiowa Lodge, southeast of Los Angeles, an ex-football player (Michigan State) named Sam Dictor was offering a reducing course for the jitney trade at $80 a week. The program began with a glass of hot water and lemon juice served in bed. Then the inmates jumped into sweat suits emblazoned "Kiowa," and began a rugged, day-long routine of calisthenics, swimming, games and "passive exercise" with reducing gadgets, punctuated by healthful meals with low calorie counts (800 to 1,000 a day). Actually, all activity made it harder for the women to control their appetites. And director Dictor was an uninspiring 220 himself. But the women loved it and lost weight anyway.

In Los Angeles, health food stores were seeing lots of new customers. Some merely bought sugarless candy; others asked the storekeeper to work out a complete diet for them. A San Francisco brewery got in the swim by advertising: "Regal Pale Is the Low-Calorie Beer." In Atlanta, the Constitution's Editor Ralph McGill was punishing himself at breakfast and lunch with a trick powder, mixed with fruit juice, to kill appetite. Said McGill, 25 Ibs. lighter in 14 weeks: "I just decided to stop being silly about it and lose some of that ugly weight." His regimen still allowed him to enjoy a standard dinner.

One big trouble was that many reducers reached their target weight only to put the pounds back on again, because emotional problems leading to overeating had not been solved. So, in Chicago, many were trying to unscramble their egos. Some were members of Take Off Pounds Sensibly, or TOPS (TIME, Feb. 9), and met for mutual mental aid as part of their reducing programs. For others, the Y.W.C.A. had three chapters meeting regularly with a psychiatrist.

Like all reformed characters, successful dieters were eager to pass on the secret of their salvation to others who were still weighted down with sinful fat. Relatively few of them were putting their faith in nine-day-wonder diets, deceptive drugs or robot exercisers. Many had made the necessary adjustments in their own emotions and appetites, and could say simply: "To reduce, eat less."

Fat on the Chops. There was good news for the dieters: doctors are changing their minds about the best way to diet, and making it easier. They are still, by & large, in favor of highprotein, low-carbohydrate programs. But they are reversing themselves on the old idea that a dieter must cut all the fat off his steak or chops.

Physiologists are even changing their minds about what hunger is. Stomach contractions, the old scapegoat, do not explain hunger, because a man gets hungry even when his whole stomach has been removed. At Harvard's School of Public Health, Biochemist Jean Mayer has found evidence that "feeling hungry" depends on the amount of sugar in the blood. He says this goes up after eating, and the eater no longer feels hungry. But a few hours later it goes down, and he wants food. (In diabetics, the changes are more complicated.)

A Harvard nutritionist, Dr. Frederick J. Stare, has translated the latest scientific findings into a set of revised rules for sensible dieting:

1) "Instead of a starvation breakfast of toast and coffee, start off the day with a good, hearty meal: fruit, cereal, eggs with ham or bacon, two slices of toast and coffee. This keeps the blood sugar up, whereas the skimpy breakfast lets it fall in midmorning, and then you slip out for another sweet roll. It would really be better if fat people could eat dinner in the morning and breakfast at night."

2) "Eat slowly. It takes five to ten minutes for food to raise the blood sugar level. If you eat slowly, then halfway through the meal you're less hungry, and stop eating."

3) "Don't forget fat. It is a sort of blotter. It sops up the food and slows down absorption. So a moderate amount of fat helps you to feel less hungry and eat less."

4) "Protein is just as important--and eat your protein first. Then, with the blood sugar up, you won't be so interested in the rest of the meal, which probably has more calories in it." There was even a glimmer of good news for the candy manufacturers in the scientists' latest theories. If a dieter gets ravenously hungry before mealtime, it may be a good idea to boost the blood sugar level temporarily with a piece of candy and deliberately "spoil the appetite."

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