How to Analyze People on Sight. Elsie Lincoln Benedict
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and interests of the Alimentive. For him to like a thing or
buy a thing it must come pretty near being something he can eat, wear,
live in or otherwise personally enjoy. He confines himself to the
concrete and tangible. But most of all he confines himself to things out
of which he gets something for himself.
Reading
The fat man is no reader but when he does read it is nearly always
something funny, simple or sentimental. In newspapers he reads the
"funnies." Magazine stories, if short and full of sentiment, attract
him. He seldom reads an editorial and is not a book worm. The newspaper
furnishes practically all of the fat man's reading. He seldom owns a
library unless he is very rich, and then it is usually for "show."
Avoids Book Stores
In making the investigations for this course, we interviewed many
clerks in the bookstores of leading cities throughout the United
States. Without exception they stated that few extremely fat people
patronized them. "I have been in this store seventeen years and I have
never sold a book to a two hundred and fifty pounder," one dealer told
us. All this is due to the fact with which we started this chapter--that
the fat man is built around his stomach--and stomachs do not read!
Naturally Realistic
The fat man has the child's natural innocence and ignorance of subtle
and elusive things. He has the same interest in things and people as
does the child; the child's indifference to books, lectures, schools and
everything abstract.
Physical Assets
"I believe I could digest nails!" exclaimed a fat friend of ours
recently. This perfect nutritive system constitutes the greatest
physical superiority of the Alimentive. So highly developed is his whole
stomach department that everything "agrees" with him. And everything
tends to make him fat.
As Irvin Cobb recently said: "It isn't true that one can't have his cake
and eat it, too, for the fat man eats his and keeps it--all."
Physical Liabilities
A tendency to over-eat results naturally from the highly developed
eating and digesting system of this type but this in turn overtaxes all
the vital organs, as stated before. Also, the fat man's aversion to
exercise reduces his physical efficiency.
The pure Alimentive and the alimentively-inclined should learn their
normal weight and then keep within it if they desire long lives.
Social Assets
Sweetness of disposition is one of the most valuable of all human
characteristics. Fat people possess it more often and more unchangingly
than any other type. Other social assets of this type are amenableness,
affability, hospitality and approachableness.
Social Liabilities
Gaining his ends by flattery, cajolery, and various more or less
innocent little deceptions are the only social handicaps of this type.
Emotional Assets
His unfailing optimism is the most marked emotional quality of this
type. Nothing can be so dark that the fat person doesn't find a silver
edge somewhere. So in disaster we always send for our fat friends. In
the presence of an amply-proportioned individual everything looks
brighter. Hope springs eternal in human breasts but the springs are
stronger in the plump folks than in the rest of us.
Money spending is also a marked feature of the fat man. His emotions are
out-going, never "in-growing." A stingy fat man is unknown.
Emotional Liabilities
A tendency to become spoiled, to pout, and to take out his resentments
in babyish ways are the emotional weaknesses of this type. These, as you
will note, are the natural reactions of childhood, from which he never
fully emerges.
Business Assets
The ability to make people like him is the greatest business and
professional asset of this type, and one every other type might well
emulate. One average-minded fat man near the door of a business
establishment will make more customers in a month by his geniality,
joviality and sociableness than a dozen brilliant thinkers will in a
year. Every business that deals directly with the public should have at
least one fat person in it.
Business Liabilities
A habit of evading responsibility and of "getting out from under"
constitutes the inclination most harmful to the business or professional
ambitions of this type. Again it is the child in him trying to escape
the task set for it and at the same time to avoid punishment.
Domestic Strength
Love of home is a distinguishing domestic trait of all fat people. The
fat man's provision for his family is usually as complete as his
circumstances will permit and he often stretches it a point.
As parents fat men and women are almost too easy-going for their own
future happiness, for they "spoil" their children. But they are more
loved by their children than any other type. Being so nearly children
themselves they make equals of their children, enter into their games
and live their lives with them.
Domestic Weakness
Dependence on others, the tendency of allowing one's self to be
supported by brothers or sisters or wife, is the chief domestic weakness
of fat people. They should begin early in life to depend upon
themselves and make it a practice to carry their share of family
responsibilities.
Should Aim At
Developing more of his mental powers with a view to using his head to
lessen the manual work he so dislikes, and cultivating an interest in
the more mature side of the world in which he lives should be two of the
aims of all extremely fat people.
Should Avoid
"Letting down," soft snaps and temptations to evade responsibility
should be avoided by the fat. Elbert Hubbard said, "Blessed is the man
who is not looking for a soft snap, for he is the only one who shall
find it."