There is a natural tendency for an accumulation of fat in middle age. Sedentary occupations, the intake of more food than necessary, defective elimination, a disturbed metabolism of the body and want of exercise—all these attendant consequences of middle age add stealthily to our weight by an unconscious deposit of fat in our tissues. Within normal limits this is allowable but an excessive deposit of fat is certainly detrimental to health. It soon proves itself to be a drag on the body and demands greater and greater muscular effort to move the latter.

It greatly reduces the capacity for work and so hinders progress towards betterment of one's future. The first deposit of fat occurs in those parts of the body, the muscles of which are least subjected to contraction and relaxation. The muscles of the limbs are constantly at work due to our movements. Their contraction and relaxation do not favor deposition of an excess of fat. The muscles of the chest are also perpetually on the move, though not quite to the same extent as those of the limbs, due to our respiratory activity and the movements of the upper limbs of the body. The muscles of the abdominal wall are least subjected to contraction either by internal or external actions. They have the power of contraction but by neglect they remain flaccid and so to these muscles the majority of the troubles of the middle age are due. No doubt the abdominal muscles move backwards and forwards but this movement is only secondary in importance and is dependent on the movement of the diaphragm in respiration. It is not carried out by inducing contractions and relaxations in the abdominal muscles themselves by our own will though it is possible to do this by fixing the diaphragm as during suspension of respiration. Even this automatic backordered forward movement is hardly noticeable in the lower part of the abdominal wall, that is, between the navel and the pubic bones, because of the forward pressure exerted by the flaccid intestines, overloaded with waste matter crowded in that part. Hence this is a suitable place for the accumulation of fat where it lies undisturbed from any movement and so produces a rounded bulge, popularly called a "bun," in the lower part of the abdomen. From there it spreads upwards near to the pit of the stomach and the surrounding area producing the well-known pot-bellied appearance.

Simultaneously with this deposition of fat there occurs locally a gradual deposit of fat round about the internal organs often obstructing their functions. Other favorable sites for an accumulation of fat are near the hips. They, like the abdominal wall, are least subjected to contraction. The accumulation of fat in that particular area is more marked in women than in men. The truth of this is embodied in an aphorism which says that "after forty, men put on weight in the front and women at the back." In both men and women, the accumulation of fat is the direct result of defective digestion, unnatural absorption, the lack of proper elimination and want of exercise.

With the accumulation of fat the movements of the body become slow and labored. When the body is in such a state any manual work like lifting oneself against gravity, as in ascending staircases, puts an extra strain on the heart, the reserve energy of which thus gets exhausted by the jolts and jars of middle life. The heart, though it is the most strongly muscular involuntary organ of the body, soon gets flabby under the strain and loses its force of contraction so necessary for the maintenance of the proper velocity and pressure of blood in circulation. The strain on the heart is manifested by palpitations, and usually apparent by the puffing of the cheeks made necessary by the respiratory activity. Consequently the Vasomotor balance is disturbed and this causes the body, in addition, to be drenched with perspiration. This does not necessarily indicate actual disease of the heart, but it certainly constitutes a clear pointer to the fact that you have overdrawn your account from the body-vitality and that all further activity must be suspended till the accounts have been properly adjusted once again. If these warning symptoms of disorder of the heart are disregarded, a sharper warning is soon sent in the form of venous stagnation leading to congestion of the liver, the kidneys and the abdominal viscera. The derangement of these organs is indicated in the "salient symptoms"—as Sir Leonard Williams puts it—of glycoside (diabetes), albumin urea and the rise of blood pressure. These bring one to the very verge of physical bankruptcy.

This deterioration of health ultimately so lowers the resistance of the body that it becomes easily susceptible to chills and seasonal changes, any one of which may develop into an acute illness probably necessitating much expenditure of money and resulting in shattered health, and compulsory absence from all work or business. Thus the majority of men and women find it difficult to keep healthy during the middle period of life; but those who remain so, retain all the elasticity of their youth throughout the whole period. They are gifted by nature with a healthy constitution and we may call them truthfully, the favored few of God. The prevention of the deterioration of health is better and wiser than trying to get fit again after a breakdown. The above-mentioned symptoms accompanying middle life may not portend actual illness but they certainly make one feel ill at ease. They are warning signs of premature ageing which must be avoided, not by the use of quack nostrums, but by the practice of graduated exercises suitable to middle age conditions, so that the real springtime of life— the middle age —may radiate health, happiness and prosperity all around.