PERSONAL APPEARANCES IN HEALTH AND DISEASE. 29 



normal, and trangress the bounds of health; and then all 

 the forming causes tell with tenfold vigour. 



But as growth proceeds, and activity takes the place of 

 inertness, the tendency to the production of fat is lessened ; 

 and hence it is that a fat child or youth is rightly regarded 

 as one whose nutrition is at fault, or whose diet is of a 

 kind which should not be encouraged. The full exercise 

 of the body, during its period of growth, is incompatible 

 with the production of fat, and strongly counteracts what 

 tendency there may be to its formation. As life advances, 

 and the period of growth is passed, and maturity is 

 yielding before the advance of old age, then the lessened 

 call upon the expenditure of the body favours the accu- 

 mulation of fat, and we reach that period of the seven 

 ages when corpulence is regarded almost with reverence, 

 and even desired as adding dignity and importance. 



Of the causes of corpulence that which is predominant 

 is that to which we have already referred with regard to 

 leanness. The tendency to obesity is as much under the 

 influence of heredity as the tendency to spareness. It 

 " runs in families," and it can as little be avoided as a 

 man can get rid of his features or the, colour of his hair, 

 or tendency to early baldness, or any of the thousand and 

 one proclivities which he derives from his parents. Vain 

 indeed is the effort to reduce his form to greater comeli- 

 ness. No amount of abstinence in diet, of regulated or 



