( Originally Published 1936 ) If dietetics is such an exact
science why isn't it possible, you ask, to keep people on a good
average as to body weight? Of all dietetic questions, the two
which interest most people are: "How can a skinny person like
me, get plump?" and "How can a fatty like me, get thin?" There
are a great many different answers involved in these apparently
simple questions. First, as anybody can observe, there is the
matter of taste. I mean gustatory taste. It has even become
imbedded in a nursery rhyme. And Jack Sprat, who would eat no
fat, and his wife, who would eat no lean, not only licked the
platter dean but they also developed two opposite types of body
build. But the very fact that this matter of varying taste
enters into the calculations shows that dietetics is really an
exact science. Because in spite of all the protests from the
people involved, and in spite of the invocations to the action
of the ductless glands, modem dietetic science has shown that
people can get plump by eating