The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-06-18
POLICEMEN AND ADIPosITY.
Why Does Life on the Force Increase
Nearly Every Ones Weight?


1t has often been a source of wonder why
the policemen in the cities of America are
so fat. In the older monarch ridden
countries of the world obesity is to be
found on the bench of the lower magis-
tracy. Among savages the monarehs
alone are fat. Without making scientific
mystery of it, the cause of adiposity
among these somewhat related classes is
the same in all three-they are overfed
and underworked.
A police surgeon has recently given
voice to some opinions on the case of fat
policeman, a very fat policeman, indeed,
and thence with MachiayelIian art has
proceeded TO formulate an essay on the
fairness of policemen in general. The po-
iceman weighed $50 pounds when the sur
geon first began to observe him, but in the
course of a four months illness he dwin-
died to 240 pounds, and still the surgeon
believed him to be too fat. We are pre-
pared to believe it. In the course of his
general remarks he makes one startling
statement, namely: 1.-The life of police
man is at best a very inactive one" It is
surprising that this should be the fact.
True, observation of our individual police
men is mostly associa ted with seeing them
leaning against lampposts, chatting easily
with acquaintances or with each other, or
else standing before some building which
they are set to guard. The peculiarly imper-
ceptible way in which they manage to get
from point to point does not quite convey
the idea of motion, yet when the compla-
cent citizen thinks of the "force'' as
guardians of the peace" the idea of sup
pleness, alertness, swiftness, arises en-
bodied before his minds eye in an ideal
h0I Of nj OIL IU xyH +
Darwinians would call a Survival" The
modern policeman in these United States
has put an envelope of fat upon it.
Proceeding with his general remarks the
surgeon said: ANY one can notice that as
soon as man is appointed on the force he
begins to increase IN weight and belt
measurement, his muscles become 1abby,
and as a result of all this he moves
more slowly than was his won't"
Precisely, therefore, at the period
when we imagine him smartened out of
the loose conditions of civilian life,
Strengthened by discipline and urged by the
traditions of his new calling to q foxlike
activity, he is, it seems, accommodating fat
and settling down into a numbering object
in uniform, with an ever expanding belt
and an ever increasing aversion to
LOGON otion. That a low morale may
follow in the same ratio should not
be incredible. When Shakespeare
makes FaIstaff apologize for his gen
eral want of moral tone, does not Sir John
say, "Thou seest 1 have more flesh than an
other man, and therefore more frailty''2
This plea, so far as we are aware, was not
interposed even by the police themselves
to meet the charges of corrupt dealing
formerly urged against them in various
quarters, but it is clearly worth consider
ing.
And why should not the converse of the
proposition be taken to hearth Would 1t
not be well to guard against frailty, while
giving a desirable spring to constabulary
heels, by forbidding fairness on the force 2
There is, no doubt, some connection
between mental and physical states
Without straining the point to find
an intimate link between rotundity and
rascality, it is very clear proposition
that the will to catch light-footed thief is
modified by the inability to run a mile
say. Exercise, such as might be had in
the station-houses, combined with an or
der to run round their beats, say, twice
day, would be some corrective, but ulti-
mately, as in every case of obesity without
exception, fat can only be controlled by a
proper dietary. Obesity has only one
misunderstanding.
Tell that to any fat man-policeman or
other-and he will be indignant. Men
ton 1t 10 a lady who has passed beyon
the state good naturedly indicated by that
troublesome word embonpoint and you
may prepare to deal with Mysteries;
but it is most true. Fat is the
superfuity of the heat supply of
the body. The policeman who has been a
workman finds himself better paid than
ever before and with much less to do. He
eats better and richer food; he fingers
longer over it. As he has no mus
cular exercise to take up the increased
heat supply, nature condemns him to
carry it around. He grows fat. The rea-
soning applies TO bankers, brokers, mer-
chants and manufacturers. to the lay
and the clerical, to the ''stout" lady at
the opera as to the 'fat lady" in the mu-
seums. 1t is to be hoped that the informa-
ton about the police, which we have
called startling, and is truly SO, shall not
fail of notice among those who have con-
troll in police circles. as it should not be
lost on the fat of those who are fattening
in any walk of life. Do not overeat.-Har-
per's Weekly.