Unless they are needed for other reasons, diet pills and other medication are not needed and should be avoided except in extreme cases. Taking thyroid extract, for example, when it is not indicated from a medical point of view, can damage the heart. A number of other commercial preparations now on the market, used for controlling the appetite, have the undesirable side effects of overstimulating the nervous system or, in some cases, of interfering with the body’s metabolism.

In the game of losing weight, there are no “wild” cards, and there is no way to cheat. You will win or lose, depending upon how well you follow the rules and play your hand. Remember the amount of money you spend for food is not half so important as the way you spend it. Whether your income is $20,000 a year or $100,000, the proper food in the proper amount is within your reach.

Not only is such a program wise and helpful for you, but think how many years of good health and happiness you can offer your children. A survey revealed that of almost three-fourths of the nation’s children studied, not a single one rated top health grades in strict medical examinations! Such a deplorable and widespread epidemic of malnutrition can easily be corrected if you will bring to the vital subject of nutrition the same dedicated parental care that you do to other phases of your children’s lives.

You have nothing to lose, and precious years of life to gain.

No matter what your age may be, you can increase your life span by a definite number of years. What’s more, those additional years can be healthy, happy years, full of things that make life worth livingreally worth living.

Even if you’ve had a heart attack, the low-fat diet can double your normal span of expected years. Studies on the effects of low-fat diets on men and women who had survived heart attacks reveal a low-fat diet is best. Those who followed a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet and who reduced their weight to normal, gained twice as many years of life as the non-dieters who had also suffered heart attacks.

The same low-fat diet may lengthen the life of everyone. The logical conclusion is that if, as we have seen, coronary atherosclerosis is already extensively present in the entire population, then this normal-weight-through-diet health program would give an over-all additional five years to every person in the nation.

The amazing advances of American medicine since 1945, with all the new wonder drugs, surgical innovations, improved treatment techniques, and public programs, have resulted in extending the average American’s life five years. This was achieved by the creative genius of many researchers and the expenditure of billions of dollars. Now similar results can be accomplished by a simple, intelligent health program, aimed at proper nutrition for controlling weight and at the same time providing better health.

Ideal weight can add more “bonus” years of life. But you cannot expect to receive this “bonus” without working to earn it. Success will come through careful study of the low-fat diet as well as the careful and consistent application of this type of food plan. And it is never too late to begin.

If you are 50 years old and markedly overweight, how many years can you add to your life by reducing to normal weight and staying that way? If you are more than 30 per cent overweight, you could add a little over four-and-a-half years to your life.

What about younger people? Studies all point to the same conclusion: Excessive weight put on in young adulthood, and maintained through life, carries the risk of shortening life by a frightening number of years. Let us say, for instance, that you are in your early twenties, and are markedly overweight. If you do not reduce to a normal figure, and stay that way, you are sacrificing over fifteen and a half years of life! Whatever your age, if you are obese, it is important to get your weight down as quickly as it is safe to do so.

This does not mean that you should “fall” for the widely advertised but ineffectual and even dangerous diet pills that promise to “melt the fat off” within a few days without much dieting. The safe way, the effective way, is through a low-fat food program. The low-fat way is the healthy way, the way of longer life.