Being overweight in old-time, and modern Phoenix, Arizona


As someone who has a fascination with fitness, and plans to live forever, I'm aware of the concept of being overweight. And it's a term that requires consideration of what exactly the weight is "over". That is, what should people weigh? I mean, you can't have "overweight" without determining what's the right weight, or what's underweight, right?

OK, calm down there if you think that I'm trying to do something like "fat shaming". I didn't even do that when I was a little kid in school in the 1960s when an overweight kid was so unusual that they were usually teased. As I recall, the term "water rat" was used. But I digress.

There are two ways to determine if your weight is higher than normal - you can look around at people, decide what the average is, and then measure yourself against that. Or you could look at some kind of height/weight chart, like the kind your doctor uses. I recommend that if you want to remain happy with yourself you do the former, and skip the latter.

The prosperous-looking gentleman there sitting in his office at the Phoenix National Bank in 1915 is Emil Gantz. I'm inclined to say that even by modern standards, he is overweight. There were a lot of reasons that the average person in Phoenix was lighter than they are now, not the least of which is that we now have better nutrition, better medicine, and of course Kit-Kat bars (which they didn't have back then).

Gantz just exudes wealth, from his french cuffs with cufflinks to his cigar which is balancing on the edge of his desk. I don't want to mention the toupee, but I'm guessing it was the best that money could buy at the time. And his girth also showed off his wealth. He could afford to eat anything he wanted, got good medical care (including dental) and there would have been no reason for him to do any type of exercise at all.

Attitudes change, and being overweight is no longer seen as a display of wealth, and hasn't been for a long time. It's such a sensitive subject that the word "big" has become the modern euphemism for being fat, which is just a bit confusing to someone my age, who remembers when big meant big as in football players, not just wide.

Speaking for myself, I'm overweight if you just look at height/weight charts. I'm not particularly muscular, but I carry more of it than the average guy, and that stuff is dense, and heavier per square inch than fat. Of course, if I look around me, especially if I'm in a Walmart, at what I see as the average, I'm underweight.


I can just picture Emil Gantz visiting his doctor, who would be pleased that a man of his age was holding his weight so well. He would probably be smoking his cigar the whole time, too, and the doctor would be fine with that. But nowadays I really can't recommend visiting your doctor while smoking a cigar and being overweight, you'd probably get criticized!
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