The Washington times., 1935-12-07
Health
Types of Fat
Persons
By LOGAN CLENDENING, M. D.

One OF LIE 1TeQuGI1G walls VI
overweights is that they are not
like other people.
They say they do not eat any
more than a normal person of the
same height, and yet that their
body weight increases because the
mechanism of food storage with
them is not the same as with the
normal.
There was considerable scien-
tific support for this idea a few
years ago, when certain German
professors stated that there were
two kinds Of fat people: first,
those who were fat because they
ate too much, and, second, those
who were fat because the body
mechanism was Of a certain kind
which tended to store fat.
These were called "exogenous"
and "endogenous" forms of obesity.
Severe JOIts
This idea has taken some severe
jolts in the last few years from
American Investigators, who main
tain that there is no difference in
the nutritional mechanism of fat
people as compared with thin and
normal persons.
All obesity, they say, is sim
pie, or exogenouS, obesity. The
increase in weight merely repre-
sents an inflow of energy greater
than the outflow. One of these
investigators ridicules the state
ment that a fat person eats less
than normal person, as a flat
denial of the law dealing. with
the conservation Of energy.
Personally, I am not prepared
to admit that these criticisms are
entirely justifiable, nor do I be-
1ieve that we need say that the
law Of the conservation Of energy
is violated in order to explain
them.
If one Of these nutritionists
had lived in the days before we
discovered the nature Of diabetes,
he might have said that the
idea that a man could eat twice
as much as another man and
still continue to get thin, was a
flat denial of the law Of the
conservation Of energy,
I believe there is a factor
which tends to keep thin people
thin and tends to keep fat people
fat, the nature of which we still
do not know.
The crucial experiments along
this line have not been per-
formed. I conceive these would
be to take two people Of the
same height and age, one Of
whom weighs, we will say, lis
pounds, and one of whom weighs
1876. Feed them for several
weeks on the same diet. and see
to it that they perform the
same amount of muscular work,
and compare their weight gains
and losses.
Unknown Factor
I have an instinct that what
will be found is that the fat
person will require more water
and drink more water, and that
this water retention has some
thing to do with the retention
of food materials and the main
tenance of overweight.
At the same time there is
enough in the opposition argu-
ment to make the fat person dis
card his excuse.
The enemies Of the person are
the friends who invite him to a
snack in the middle Of the after
noon, or the midnight lunch;
times when he forgets he is on a
diet. Also, it being more mcom-
Portable for him to do so, the fat
person naturally does not make
as many muscular motions as a
person of normal weight.
If these things were really sci
entifically controlled there would
be more success observed in re-
duction diets.
EDITORS NOTE: Six pam
phlets by DR.. Clendening can now
be obtained by sending 10 cents
in coin, for each, and a self
addressed envelope stamped with
a Scent stamp, to DR.. Logan
Clendening. in care of this paper.
The pamphlets are: Indigestion
and Constipation" Reducing and
Gaining" Infant Feeding" In
structions for the Treatment Of
Diabetes" Feminine Hygiene"