How to Analyze People on Sight by Elsie Lincoln Benedict (epub read online books txt) 📕
Constant repetition of the same kinds of thoughts or emotions finally makes permanent changes in that part of the body which is physiologically related to these mental processes.
The Evolution of the Jaw
¶ The jaw is a good illustration of this alliance between the mind and the body. Its muscles and bones are so closely allied to the pugnacity instinct center in the brain that the slightest thought of combat causes the jaw muscles to stiffen. Let the thought of any actual physical encounter go through your mind and your jaw bone will automatically move upward and outward.
After a lifetime of combat, whether by fists or words, the jaw sets permanently a little more upward and outward--a little more like that of the bulldog. It keeps to this combative mold, "because," says Mother Nature, the great efficiency expert, "if you are going to call on me constantly to stiffen that jaw I'll fix it so it will stay that way and save myself the trouble."
Inheritance
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Postpone Combinations
¶ Until you have learned these pure types thoroughly it will be to your advantage to forget that there is such a thing as combinations. After you have these extreme types well in mind you will be ready to analyze combinations.
¶ Science has discovered that there are five types of human beings. Discarding for a moment their technical names, they may be called the fat people, the florid people, the muscular people, the bony people and the mental people.
Each varies from the others in shape, size and structure and is recognizable at a glance by his physique or build. This is because his type is determined by the preponderance within his body of one of the five great departments or biological systems—the nutritive, the circulatory, the muscular, the bony or the nervous.
¶ Every child is born with one of these systems more highly developed, larger and better equipped than the others.
¶ Throughout his life this system will express itself more, be more intense and constant in its functioning than the others and no manner of training, education, environment or experience, so long as he remains in normal health, will alter the predominance of this system nor prevent its dictating his likes, dislikes and most of his reactions.
¶ If you do not understand why the overaction of one bodily system should influence a man's nature see if you can't recall more than one occasion when a square meal made a decided difference in your disposition within the space of thirty minutes.
If one good meal has the power to alter so completely our personalities temporarily, is it then any wonder that constant overfeeding causes everybody to love a fat man? For the fat man is habitually and chronically in that beatific state which comes from over-eating.
Note: Bear in mind at the beginning of this and every other chapter, that we are describing the extreme or unmixed type. Before leaving this book you will understand combination types and should read people as readily as you now read your newspaper.
hose individuals in whom the alimentive system is more highly developed than any other are called Alimentives. The alimentive system consists of the stomach, intestines, alimentary canal and every part of the assimilative apparatus.
¶ A general rotundity of outline characterizes this type. He is round in every direction. Fat rolls away from his elbows, wrists, knees and shoulders. (See Chart 1)
The Fat, Overweight Individual¶ Soft flesh thickly padded over a small-boned body distinguishes the pure Alimentive type. In men of this type the largest part of the body is around the girth; in women it is around the hips. These always indicate a large nutritive system in good working order. Fat is only surplus tissue—the amount manufactured by the assimilative system over and above the needs of the body.
Fat is more soft and spongy than bone or muscle and lends to its wearer a softer structure and appearance.
¶ Because his bones are small the pure Alimentive has small feet and small hands. How many times you have noted with surprise that the two hundred pound woman had tiny feet! The inconvenience of "getting around" which you have noticed in her is due to the fact that while she has more weight to carry she has smaller than average feet with which to do it.
¶ A head comparatively small for the body is another characteristic of the extreme Alimentive. The neck and lower part of the head are covered with rolls of fat. This gives the head the effect of spreading outward from the crown as it goes down to the neck, thus giving the neck a short, disproportionately large appearance.
¶ A "full-moon" face with double or triple chins gives this man his "baby face." (See Chart 2) Look carefully at any extremely fat person and you will see that his features are inclined to the same immaturity of form that characterizes his body.
Very few fat men have long noses. Nearly all fat men and women have not only shorter, rounder noses but shorter upper lips, fuller mouths, rounder eyes and more youthful expressions than other people—in short, the features of childhood.
The entire physical makeup of this type is modeled upon the circle—round hands with dimples where the knuckles are supposed to be; round fingers, round feet, round waist, round limbs, sloping shoulders, curving thighs, bulging calves, wrists and ankles.
Wherever you see curves predominating in the physical outlines of any person, that person is largely of the Alimentive type and will always exhibit alimentive traits.
¶ The Alimentive is a man of unhurried, undulating movements. The difficulty in moving large bodies quickly necessitates a slowing down of all his activities. These people are easeful in their actions, make as few moves as possible and thereby lend an air of restfulness wherever they go.
Because it is difficult to turn their heads, extremely fat people seldom are aware of what goes on behind them.
¶ Very fat people waddle when they walk, though few of them realize it. They can not watch themselves go by and no one else has the heart to impart bad news to this pleasant person.
¶ The fat man spills over chairs and out of his clothes. Big arm chairs, roomy divans and capacious automobiles are veritable dykes to these men. Note the bee-line the fat person makes for the big leather chair when he enters a room!
¶ The best that money can buy are the kinds of clothes purchased by the Alimentive whenever he can afford them. And it often happens that he can afford them, especially if the Cerebral system comes second in his makeup. If he is in middle circumstances his clothes will be chosen chiefly for comfort. Even the rich Alimentive "gets into something loose" as soon as he is alone. Baggy trousers, creased sleeves, soft collars and soft cuffs are seen most frequently on fat men.
Comfort is one of the very first aims of this type. To attain it he often wears old shoes or gloves long past their time to save breaking in a new pair.
¶ Cold weather affects this type. If you will look about you the first cold day of autumn you will note that most of the overcoats are on the plump men.
¶ Never to take anything too seriously is an unconscious policy of fat people. They show it plainly in their actions and speech. The very fat man is seldom a brilliant conversationalist. He is often a "jollier" and tells stories well, especially anecdotes and personal experiences.
¶ He seldom relates his troubles and often appears not to have any. He avoids references to isms and ologies and gives a wide berth to all who deal in them. Radical groups seldom number any extremely fat men among their members, and when they do it is usually for some other purpose than those mentioned in the by-laws.
The very fat man dislikes argument, avoids disagreeing with you and sticks to the outer edges of serious questions in his social conversation.
¶ Rich food in large quantities is enjoyed by the average fat man three times a day and three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Between meals he usually manages to stow away a generous supply of candy, ice cream, popcorn and fruit. We have interviewed countless popcorn and fruit vendors on this subject and every one of them told us that the fat people kept them in business.
¶ As for the ice cream business, take a look the next time you pass a soda fountain and note the large percentage of fat people joyfully scooping up mountains of sundaes, parfaits and banana splits. You will find that of those who are sipping things through straws the thin folks are negotiating lemonades and phosphates, while a creamy frappé is rapidly disappearing from the fat man's glass.
¶ "What do you suppose is making me so plump?" naively inquires the fat man when it finally occurs to him—as it did to his friends long before—that he is surely and speedily taking on flesh.
If you don't know the answer, look at the table of any fat person in any restaurant, café or dining room. He is eating with as much enthusiasm as if he had just been rescued from a forty-day fast, instead of having only a few hours before looked an equally generous meal in the eye and put it all under his belt. The next time you are at an American plan hotel where meals are restricted to certain hours note how the fat people are always the first ones into the dining room when the doors are opened!
¶ Butter, olive oil, cream, pastry and starches are foods that increase your weight just as fast as you eat them, if your assimilative system is anything like it should be. Though he is the last man in the world who ought to indulge in them the fat man likes these foods above all others and when compelled to have a meal without them feels as though he hadn't eaten at all.
¶ We had a friend who decided to reduce. But in spite of the fact that she lived on salads almost exclusively for a week she kept right on gaining. We thought she had been surreptitiously treating herself to lunches between meals until some one noticed the dressing with which she drowned her lettuce: pure olive oil—a cupful at a sitting—"because," she said "I must have something tasty to camouflage the stuff."
¶ Once in California, where no city block is complete without its cafeteria, we took a committee from one of our Human Analysis classes to six of these big establishments one noontime. To illustrate to them the authenticity of the facts we have stated above we prophesied what the fat ones would select for their meals.
Without exception their trays came by heaped with pies, cake, cream, starchy vegetables and meat, just as we predicted.
¶ According to the statistics of the United States Life Insurance Companies fat people die younger than others. And the Insurance Companies ought to know, for upon knowing instead of guessing what it is that takes us off, depends the whole life insurance business. That they consider the extremely fat man an unsafe risk after thirty years of age is a well-known fact.
"I am interrupted every day by salesmen for everything on earth except one. But the life insurance agents leave me alone!" laughed a very fat young lawyer friend of ours the other morning—and he went on ordering ham and eggs, waffles, potatoes and coffee!
That he is eating years off his life doesn't trouble the fat man, however. He has such a good time doing it!
¶ It was no accident that "Ish ka bibble" was invented by the Hebrew. For this race has proportionately more fat people in it than any other and fat people just naturally believe worry is useless. But the fat man gets this philosophy from the same source that gives him
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