Medicine: The Fat of the Land

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The reading public, the theatergoing public, the skindiving public, the horseplaying public—all these and others fill substantial roles in U.S. life, but none is so varied, vast and vigilant as the eating public. The Department of Agriculture averaged out U.S. food consumption last year at 1,488 Ibs. per person, which, allowing for the 17 million Americans that John Kennedy said go to bed hungry every night, means that certain gluttons on the upper end must somehow down 8 Ibs. or more a day. That mother hen of the weight-height tables, the...