Evening Star Newspaper, December 16, 1934, Page 98

- “Once he ran a block for the trolley and was still short of breath half an hour later.” BY DR. DONALD A. LAIRD of Colgate University. MIDDLE-AGED woman, out for an afternoon of shop- ping, was struggling through the aisle of a department store with her arms and hands loaded with bun- dles of assorted sizes, shapes and col- ors. Her hat was pushed amusingly toward one eye—perhaps she got that in the revolving door—and a fragment of her hair was stringing down at the back. On her face was an expression of grim determination which seemed to say, “Just watch me shopping again when I am in my right mind.” A crisp-looking girl, in the plain dress the store insisted on for its clerks, smiled understandingly to the woman. “Won't you let me wrap these into one snug bundle?” she said, extend- ing her hands to relieve the store’s guest of her fumbling load. “There,” she said when the bundling had been completed with dispatch. “Now, why don't you let me tuck it under the counter until you are through shopping?” The salesgirl got no sale entry in her book for this help—but she was a master salesperson. She gave her customer free energy—which the cus- tomer badly needed—with which to make purchases in the store. With all the things the average cus- tomer does to make time a precious commodity, it is little to wonder at that he rather early in life becomes as hard pressed for energy as he is for time. For it takes energy, as well as time, to keep plowing through life at the pace he is keeping up. HE dance he attended Wednesday evening, for instance, took four hours’ time. But it took energy, too, lots of it. The dancing leaves a hang- /) ¥ over in his entire body, as well as in his legs, because the fox trot, or the stately waltz, consumes the consum- er’s bodily energy at a rate from two to four times as rapidly as ordinary walking. Two days later he is still tired and slightly stiff. - If he had more money he would buy more things. So would he if he had more time to use everything he would like to own. And he would consume still more if he had unlimited energy. Something like 8 miles a_day is the dis- tance walked by the average man. This uses up energy. The store manager is favored, and walks only an average of 6!2 miles. The noble mail carrier, daunted not by sleet and snow, covers an average of 22 miles every working day. The extra two or three blocks to get to work is, obviously, but a small increase. It is the straw, however, that breaks the walker's insteps—and affects his conduct, too. Human energy is limited, of course, re- stricting the consuming power of both million- aire and pauper. The average consumer has felt this limiting power of his energy resources, but he seldom puts it into words, just as he is reluctant to admit it. If he is a 154-pound man it takes 65 calo- ries of his bodily energy per hour just to sleep. Lying in bed, but awake, takes 77 calories per hour. Sitting up as relaxed as possible con- sumes 23 more each hour than lying in bed. When he stands up he is consuming 115 calo- ries an hour, and that is for simple standing, and not being at rigid attention. He can visit the museum only a few times a year because even the slow walking past the exhibits uses up his energy at the rate of 200 calories an hour. That is how he has to pay from his own energy, too, if he is simply window shopping or wandering around a show room. If he would sit down he would consume only half as much energy. After he has been at the seashore he comes back feeling peppy and energetic; on the boardwalk, you see, he walked sitting down in a wheel chair while a hired ' flunky’s legs did the actual walking for him. When he is going to his work, at his usual going-to-work-pace, he consumes in the vicinity of 300 calories an hour, and when he quickens his pace almost to a trot he is using up 10 calories each minute. LTHOUGH he has never seen s* calorie in a show window or had a physician punch him where the calories were concealed in his body, he has felt their loss. Once he ran a “The dance he attended Wednesday evening, for instance, took four hours’ time. But it took energy, too, lots of it.” Y / block for the trolley, and was still short of breath half an hour later—it takes a full hour, or more, for the oxygen debt of a 100-yard dash to be paid off in the breathing even of the trained athlete. Thus, while he has never seen a calorie of his energy, he has felt the loss of lots of them. He wishes the garage were right at the side door, rather than at the back end of the lot where he has to use bodily energy walking to it; if he ever buys another house the garage is going to be right beside the front hall closet where he stores his overcoat and rubbers, and then he can save a little more of his energy. When he was 20 or, perhaps 25, he did not mind & dozen or a thousand extra steps, but each year after that energetic age he begrudges having to put one foot in front of the other if it can possibly be avoided. He plays a round of golf each week because he thinks it keeps him healthier, and because he enjoys loung- ing relaxed after the game on the ladies’ cock~ tail terrace. We can understand better, in the light of this information, why he likes to trade at the chain store which is a block nearer. His cousin in the big city, so long as it can be afforded, lives where he will not have to walk more than half a mile altogether in getting to work, a fact which many apartment house promoters overlooked when they bought a cheaper site two blocks farther from the big office buildings. The motor car may have been purchased originally largely to save time—although a more expensive car than was needed was bought, in order to help the customer feel adequate. But after the time saving has been obtained, if it really does save time, comfort and fatigueless riding become a prime consid- eration in the choice of the next car. It must steer without effort, the clutch must be light to operate—which tell nothing about the econ~ omy of the car, although they decide him in buying. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., DECEMBER 16, 1934. thing such as this has on you when you do your shopping ? HIS average customer drove his automobile to the world’s fair, but that and the slow walking all day long at the exposition con- sumed so much of his energy that he could scarcely sleep nights. He has decided that after this he will take the train when he is going any distance, In the meantime, the railroads are trying to sell everything except this vital fact—that it is less tiring to lounge on a train than it is to keep eyes glued re- lentlessly on the glaring highway and swing a steering wheel around curves and between swaying trucks. A recent study of a thousand average Amer- lcans determined what they consciously thought was the thing they lacked and needed most. More energy was the answer 13 per cent of them gave without hesitation. y We know, in addition, that almost half of grown-up persons wake up mornings not feeling rested. There are 23 per cent who have muscle stiffness or soreness on waking, and fing it an effort to move. The chair and bed busi- nesses will never go out of fashion. Now we can see one reason why an automoe bile has become indispensable—it saves energy, even if it does consume time away from other commodities in the long run. What is more natural, then, that economy and initial price have become secondary in electric refrigerators, for instance, to energy- saving gadgeteering to give automatic defrost- ing, foot door openers and sliding shelves? The female of the species may not be more dangerous, but she is more fatigued all the while than the male. The young wife with one or two children may not work like a horse, as she complains about, but she is certainly as tired as one. Working hard as a hod carrier is nearer the truth, for in doing an average family ironing by hand she is doing the work equivalent to unloading six tons of brick. She wants to sleep a few minutes longer mornings, and takes a nap afternoons, if she can get the children to play in the neighbor’s yard. When the housewife goes upstairs she uses up her energy 15 times as fast as when walk- ing on the level. Walking downstairs takes the energy out of her 5 times as rapidly as walk- ing on the level. When the dishwashing table USTOMER _——WANTS i MORE ENERGY “Ironing is the equivalent of unloading six tons of brick.” Do you realize how far you walk in a day, and how much effort it costs you? And what effect a seemingly irrelevant is 34 inches high the average house- wife uses up only two-thirds of the energy she does at a table 26 inches high. NE of our pressing social needs is an education of the average con- sumer in how to work to save energy, as I attempted in my books, “Increas- ing Personal Efficiency,” “Sleep” and “How to Use Psychology for Profits.” The average manufacturer has an obligation to give more study to the design of his products so the user will truly save energy by their use. Not just by letting electric motors do the obvious work, but by a scien- tific placing of height, so that stoop- ing and all possible fatiguing or usee less motion is eliminated, for example. We can’'t blame the housewife for letting a subscription to one magazine expire because it came each month wrapped so tightly in tough brown paper that it was too much work to open it. And then, when it was once unwrapped, it stayed curled up like the tin strip she unwound from the coffee can. The soap chips and cereals she buys are favored because the patent pack- ages that were easy to open attracted her when she first saw them adver- tised. It is for the same reason that she smokes a cigarette which comes in a transparent wrapper that opens just like nothing. She buys with least resistance when the package is scored to be easy to open, or when there is a startér flap or lip to make its opening easier. Her family would be served more sardines if she could get into the can without using a button hook and the ash shaker handle to persuade it to open. HE is so constructed that sales costs are lowered when the pack- age is of such a size that she can pick it from her pantry shelf without hav- ing to use both hands to grasp it, and wher. it does not stretch the fingers of one hand to the breaking point to hang on to it. She even bought a nondescript mattress because it had generous handles sewed on the edge which made it easy to handle. When she and her husband went to look at electric refrigerators she decided on one she had scarcely heard of before, and for an interesting reason. The display room had several comfortable chairs, and an understanding salesman had moved a chair for her close to one of their best boxes so she could be at ease. She heard his explanation and answers, and saw and heard while other people examined the box. Although she knew practically nothing about that make before she entered the show room, the chair was so comfortable and she stayed in it so long that she could almost have sold the box to a stranger herself. Rural Fire Loss Is Huge HE fire demon took a terrific toll on the farms of the Nation last year, the total loss being more than $100,000,000. The figure, when expanded to include all rural communi- ties with 2,500 or less population, reached the staggering sum of $260,000,000, or 65 per cent of the fire loss of the whole country. This loss averaged $16 per farm for the United States, a serious outlay, particularly be- cause of the fact that many, if not most, of the fires were due to carelessness. Farm fires will have an added seriousness this year because of the shortage of live stock feed. Most farmyard buildings which are de- stroyed by fire, barns especially, contain stored feed. Buildings can be replaced, but replacing feed this year may be a physical impossibility. Experience shows that prudent farmers who are careful in their use of matches and open fireplaces and exercise caution with gasoline and kerosene motors around barns and hay or straw stacks have few preventable fires. Personal precautions and a study of fire pre vention and fire fighting is urged by Depart- ment of Agriculture officials. They point to the excellent work that is being done by 4-H clubs and farm organizations in spreading informa- tion on the causes and effects of rural fires. They hope that some day every farm and rural home will be supplied with plenty of water in storage tanks, cisterns or ponds. With the coming of better roads and the organiza- tion of volunteer fire departments in thousands of rural communities, there is no reason why most farm buildings should not be as well pro- , tected as city property.