While exercise is one of the best means of reducing superfluous fat, there is no class of persons more loath to take exercise than the obese. The reasons are largely physiological. The greater weight is a burden to carry. The muscular tissues have in part changed to fat, and are therefore less able to do their work. The action of the lungs and the heart is interfered with by the pressure of the fat, and the individual quickly becomes exhausted and short of breath. There is the greater demand, therefore, on the part of those who incline to obesity, to exercise with determined persistency and regularity, in order to reduce their weight. Exercises involving quickness of movement, and a degree of mental activity, are the best.
=The Thin.=--The old proverb says: “It is a poor rule that will not work both ways.” Judged by this standard, the rule of exercise must be a good one, for the instances of lean arms and legs filled out, and of scrawny necks and hollow shoulders made round and plump by exercise, outnumber the other ten to one.
Many lean persons, impressed with the apparent discomfort and inconvenience of obesity, are content with their slender measure of flesh. This is especially true of men, who, as a rule, have less regard for beauty of form than those of the other sex. They overlook the fact that the man whose bony structure is well overlaid with thick layers of healthy muscular tissue is able not only to accomplish more work, but to stand greater exposure and endure more hardships than the lean man. His stronger, heavier muscles will not only carry his greater weight with less effort, but his larger body will possess a momentum that the other man does not have.
In the severe training preceding the inter-collegiate boat races, while the over fleshy lose their superfluous fat, the thin gain as rapidly in weight. Many lean people whose occupations are of a physical nature do too much, daily, in proportion to their strength. Mind and body are kept in such a constant state of activity that their energies become exhausted. If such persons will take an occasional rest through the day, when it is possible so to do, and will add an hour or more to the period of sleep, their weight will soon begin to increase. Then, by special exercises aimed at the weak points, and persistently sustained, the gain in weight will be that of solid, healthy, muscular tissue, which will not only fill out their leanness, but will give them power to do more work with less fatigue.