The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1894-12-12
Increased Girth.

which Mrs. Burton Harrison, in The An
glomaniacs, has very fclicitously touched
upon In the delineation of one of her char
actors This is the fear of increasing girth
below the waist. American women are
pursued by this nightmare to an cxtraor.
binary degree, because in America It is
not considered ut all beauty for "A WON
an to curve out voluminously at the point
where her corset board broadens into tho
spoon shape Very decidedly the contrary.
1t is otherwise in France Thoro women
do not object to n certain abdominal prOtu-
berance. They think it very undesirable
to sink fatty downward instead. When
nature has given them that sort of confer
nation, they do their best to change it hy
4 system of padding deity put into the
lining of the dress skirt or of the coat.
Our American women 90 TO Paris, and
they return. They get many new ideas,
and they embrace many new fads, sug-
Sestcd to them by their Partisan friends
and by the fashionable modstes. But tho
love for the abdominal protubcrance they
DO not acquire They remain stanchly
American in this ono distinct prejudice
against the faintest suspicion of anything
If the kind.
And they are quite right Even the
French advocate of such protubcranco
would be quick to confess that 1t can Ger.
tainly 90 too far. And how rapid it is in
going too far! She who does not take the
very first symptoms of increased girth in
time is running great risk
Once let weight settle hero and it is
hard enough to get rid of 1t again. And
yet the thing can be done, with perscvcr-
ance and the determined following of
system of muscular exercise devised by a
4. 1.
But so eilicaciuus a treatment, and one apt
to be a precious boon to so many women,
can well he repeated Before the cure,
however, comes the prevention. And how
is that to be managedY Dieting, walking
and lacing are the three things usually
advised to keep the stomach down. Diet
ing to suppress flesh is very often of no
avail, and in any case could not have any
local effect. Tho same may be said of walk
ing. AS to lacing there are times when
the snug drawing of the stays has good
results in this line.
The prudent woman will not make her
self comfortable by donning n wrapper
and loosening the stays very soon after a
heavy meal There are times in women $
lives when II fast clinging to moderately
tight corset is their only means of main
tanning their figure at all. But in the or
binary practice it is mistake to lace too
much when there is abdominal flesh. We
have all seen benighted women who
squeezed themselves in till they could
scarcely breathe and yet beneath whose
corset, We're it ever so stiff and so long,
the figure escaped in the most ungainly
curves Remember that if you have super
fluous flesh it must 20 somewhere, and
that to unduly compress it in ono spot is
eli, ,1,. . - 81.
figure for the stuit woman as Wei as for
the lean is Il symmetrical one.
Better DO lar moro loosely belt Il,
around the waist, and less dispropur inn-
ately obese above ana below. Lac NJ Cccs
not reduce he trunk; rather does ii, with
stout people enlarge it by etfcctually pre-
venting any action of the muscles. Whcr-
ever the muscles are not used the adipOse
Il -GC has Il prcdlspUsitiUn to form more
qLt, y.
\. h,rc there are signs of an increase of
size, toOtstuols and cushions FIR the feet
mast be csChUWcd, for the position in
which the body Is placed when the feet are
thus elevated tcLCs 10 make all the itsh
of the trunk sag heavily downward. Tho
habitnal attitude assumed in sitting and
in standing is altogether of the utmost
Importance in determining whether the
figure is to grow bulky and ungracofui
through the middle or not. Most people
stand improperly, with the chest il and
the lower part of the body shelving ont.
but still moro numerous are those who
have never learned to sit rightly.
1t is not right to sit on the base of the
spinal column. Nature never intended it,
and she revCngcs herself by making all
those paunchy and nabby who do so sit.
a. ehuir : m a hnf ,,r
not, You should pose yourself properly in
it, keeping the spine from sinking to-
gether, maintaining n certain frmncss
and elasticity in the muscles at the waist
and below it. You should sit upright.
even If you do not sit straight. Mark the
distinction.
There is perhaps no greater sign of re-
finement or of vulgarity than the appear
ance which people give their figure in sit
ting Often that fabby look in the trunk
stamps a feminine figure with middle
aged air when before you had thought the
possessor youthful. These, then, are pro
ventivcs.
AS to the cure for the obesity, it hinges
entirely upon the activity of the abdomi-
nal muscles above alluded to. Flesh nds
to the abdomen because its muscles are
practically atrophied. They relax from
| ulsuSe. ms Is TO DC corrected by rCgu-
lar course of exercises, of which the sim
| pcst consists in daily, for 10 or 5 min
utes morning and evening, gently press
ing the abdomen with both hands and
drawing the muscles up and down, or in
and out, as it were. In most cases this
| proves, after II few months, sufficient to
reduce the girth by several inches.
In more obdurate cases the patient"
lies fiat upon her back upon preferably
rather hard lounge, and in that posture
repeatedly raises her body in the middle
and lowers it again, keeping her arms
! close to her sides and as little as possible
| helping herself with the muscles of other
| parts of tho body in order that all the
movements may he given to those muscles
| which 1t is designed to strengthen For
once strengthened the abdominal muscles
| begin to possess some power of contractil-
| ity, thing that, at least in middle aged
women who have grown obese, they seem
often totally to lack
In short, the whole secret of this afllic-
tion SO dreaded Ey our American women,
lies in this Indulgence of the muscles,
The remedy is as simple. Realize that the
| trunk of the body has muscles and give