PHYSICAL NEEDS 



The varied delicacies that load the modern table 

 furnish temptations to overeating that few palates 

 can or do resist. In particular the American custom 

 of providing everything in lavish quantity and serving 

 several kinds of food at a course, makes for the vice of 

 overeating. The Latin races, regarding eating in the 

 light of an important social custom, prolong the meal 

 to lengths that the hurried American often thinks in- 

 terminable; yet in the end, since each course consists 

 of only a nibble at a single viand, they have partaken of 

 only a moderate quantity of food, which the digestive 

 organs are far better able to care for than if it had been 

 thrust upon them more hurriedly. This difference of 

 custom is doubtless at least partly responsible for the 

 relative prevalence among Americans of digestive dis- 

 orders on the one hand and obesity on the other. 



As to the time for eating. The customs of all races 

 of civilized men seem virtually agreed as to the whole- 

 someness of taking food three times daily. Continental 

 peoples, to be sure, seem to make light of breakfast; yet 

 the caje au lait with rolls and butter of the Frenchman 

 and the thick chocolate of the Spaniard have adequate 

 food value, even though simpler in preparation than 

 the eggs, bacon, and toast of the Englishman and the 

 sU'ak or chops and potatoes of many Americans. And 

 it is a familiar observation that many Americans after 

 living abroad come to prefer the simpler breakfast. 

 Others adapt themselves to one custom or the other 

 with the facility that characterises a formative race, 

 seeming to forget the existence of eggs and bacon 



