The question of how much to eat has engaged the attention of many able men and women, but the question has not been answered. The so-called scientists have figured out our requirements in calories. This I have already shown to be a fallacy. Most people advocate eating all the appetite calls for. But appetite is a creature of habit and can be trained to be satisfied with little food or to demand enormous quantities. The business of creating gluttonous appetites begins in infancy when infants are stuffed day and night. Dr. Page proved that an infant may be taught to guzzle day and night, or to content itself with two to four meals a day.

Dr. Clendening tells about how the scientists discovered how much food one requires. He then says that the discovery of these things did not alter the amount of food a given individual of given age, dimensions, and activity eats, and then he adds: "That amount is regulated very delicately by the individual's appetite and some curious, inner instinctive mechanism about which we understand very little."

If he understood very much about it he would know that the whole statement is false. Appetite is largely a creature of habit and the eating habits of individuals vary much more than do the shapes of their noses. There are many more peoples who over-eat than Dr. Clendening's statement would indicate. On the other hand the doctor himself remarks that "few diatribes on overeating point out the harmful consequences of under-eating. Yet these are quite real." It would really seem that perhaps appetite and the "curious, inner instinctive mechanism" fail to work at times.