The Cordova daily times., 1916-12-27
.URGFe PHYSICAL PREPAREDNESS
 OUR PEOPLE

NEW YORK, Dec. 26.-Estimating that 100000 Americans are annually rejected out of total of 1906. 900 ex- amined for life insurance, K. F.. Rit. tenhouse, of the Equitable Life Assur- ance Society, urged the need for i'm. proving the physical preparedness of the people of the United States.
 The composite physical American looks smooth, pink, and healthy" said MT. Rittenhouse. He Is a good liver O said is, not has). He hurries. He hss no time to waste. The average age at death of the American people is about 40, the medium age A He is trying, with the aid of new knowledge and inventions. to crowd the expert ences of two life times into one, He IS having some success, but the strain is telling on him.
 His digestive organs have been given so many ne wand arduous duties, to which they were not trained that they are showing signs of rebellion. He is seriously overstraining his heart, arteries, kidnews, nerve and. digestion, as their rapidly increasing death rate shows. He could detect and head off these troubles if he would go to his doctor for an occasional ex. animation. He is more than we'll rounded at the belt and slightly so at the shoulders. Under exertion he is short-winded, due to lack Of exercise or a bad heart. His 400 muscles are virtually all soft and weak from lack. of use. He is designed as an erect. outdoor animal with feet and legs for service, but he lies down by night and sits down by day. He never walks when he can ride. He scurries around at his work, gets tired and nerve worn and thinks this is physical exercise, whereas his muscles and joints hayeI been virtually idle. And yet he looks smooth, pink and healthy for the most of these signs of deterioration are not outwardly visible.
 The evil effects of his physical in. activity have been greatly aggravated by his deadly exercises and errors in eating and drinking There is no bur den too great for him to put upon his digestive system. He would not think of mixing bricks or scrap iron orI gravel with the fuel for the furnaceI which heats his house, but he does not hesitate to follow this plan in fur ntshing the fuel for his body. He feeds his stomach with all sorts of tasty junk, much of which cannot be fully digested, and which results in the trouble that comes from auto-fntoxica- tion. Auto-intoxication has fasci- nation for him. He seems to think 1t is some automatic way of getting pleasure. Slowly the fact is sinking in that his accumulation of fat Is due to the excessive use of meats, sugar. butter, sweets, cream and other rich, fat and oily foods--minus exercise With every pound he gains of excess fat his chances for shortened life increase. He should note the insur- ance records, which show that with those, above age 70, having fifteen to eighty pounds overweight. the ex- cess death rate ranges from nine per cent to seventy-five per cent above the average of all policy holders com. bined.
 With these and other statistical facts before us. 1t seems reasonable to assume that the power of our people to resist fatigue and the physical stress of modern civilization is declin. ing rather than advancing. 1t is reoba- bly, true that when our ancestors left the trees for the caves, if they did, they had high mortality experience until adjusted to their new living con ditions.' It may develop that the same will be true of our change from phy- sical active lives, chiefly outdoors. to physically inactive lives in the caves and pigeonholes of our modern dwell ing places. But wholly aside from the question of declining national vital ity, surely there can be no doubt as to the urgent need of improving the physical preparedness of our people for the protection Of the state and of posterity."