Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1914-05-28
FAT MEN At FORTY.
MAKE POOR RISKS
IN LIFE INSURANCE
Modern Life, with Its Incidence
and Rich Foods, Blamed for
the Creation of a New
Class of Hazards.

Detroit Mich, May 25.-The great
life insurance companies have become
so afraid of the heavy man of forty
five or more years of age that they
have made new classification. In
stead of insuring these men on the
basis of age as shown by the birth
record. they have them specially ex-
amined and determine the age risk by
their physical condition. In this way
an applicant who was forty-one years
by birth was sold a policy based on
ffty-six years of age.
But the thin man at thirty-fivc is
as welcome as ever on his own state
ment of age. The mortuary records
do not show him to be bad risk as
his fat brother, whose death rate is
increasing alarmingly after the forty
fve-year mark. due largely to mode Of
living and indolent habits. the COM
pany physicians say.
These facts were announced at the
sessions of the Medical Directors as
ISOLATION and the Actuarial Society of
America. DR.. L. c. Weightman, actu-
larry of tho Detroit Life Insurance COM
pany, says of this new development:
THE death rate is less to-day be-
cause of sanitary conditions.
Much OF this is due to the tremen-
dous fight which has been made against
tuberculosis. Infectious diseases are
also being successfully fought by the
physicians.
THE PENALTY OF INCIDENT
MIDDLE AGE.
But the deaths of men over forty five
years of age has increased. At that
period of life men have outgrown most
of the marks heredity has left on them.
| Deaths are usually due to heart disease,
Bright's disease, apoplexy, cancer and
diseases of the arteries. The mortality
from cancer alone is thirty per cent,
Diseases of childhood leave their
| effects, also. Scarlet fever, for instance,
may be the cause of kidney disease in
men who are forty-fve years of age or
older. The United States reports show
that more alcohol is consumed in this
country than ever before, and deaths
from alcoholism have increased accord
! ing to our tablets, one investigation bear
! ing out the results of the other.
THE standard of living appears to be
responsible for the increase in deaths of
men over forty-five. People eat more
food and richer food than they should.
The plain fare Of our fathers does not
satisfy the man of to-day
CORPORATIONS MAKE MEN FAT.
another cause of increased deaths
and this may astonsh many-is the
growth of corporations. The corpora
ton has taken away the initiative of the
Individual. They have taken the zest
out of life They have reduced the
amount of work that many men would
perform If they We're in business foI
themselves. Result-men grow lazy and
fat.
THE heavy man is distinctly in bad
favor We have found that they are not
in the best class of risks. We had a
man in the office the other day, but
forty-one years old. yet we had to in
sure him as though he were ffty-siS
years old. He is in a new classification
So are all other heavy men.
las age continues large men usually
grow fatter Thin men remain the same
or increase but little in weight They
are not so subject to pneumonia. They
really have it all over the big man anC
make the best risk. And the tables o
death, prepared after many years anC
from many hundred thousand cases, beai
this out"