Starches? Ugh!

Four and twenty fat women sat in a row. They hardly knew where they were--and didn't care. Eleven stories below, in Chicago's Loop, riveters chattered, but all they heard was a soothing, syrupy voice. Said the voice: "Close your eyes and relax." They did. "You are going to be deep, deep asleep in a few minutes." They slept.

The molasses voice flowed on: "You will be unable to use sugar, starches, oils or fats in your foods....Even the thought of them will be repulsive to you....You will not drink carbonated drinks any more, nor beer, nor liquor....You will end your bedtime snacks and your eating between meals. You will be satisfied with only half your usual quantity of food..."

The chunky owner of the voice, Edwin L. Baron, "master hypnotist," padded softly among the entranced women. When an eyelid fluttered, he put his hand on the sleeper's forehead, murmuring his message again. "Now I will count to three and you will wake up," he said briskly. With yawns and stretches, they woke. The lesson had lasted half an hour.

Baron's reducing classes have nicely filled the summer slump in his hypnotism lectures. At first he took no fees, but last week, with 70 clients, he began to charge newcomers $2.50 a lesson.

Said Mrs. Miriam Shapiro, after losing 14 Ibs. in five weeks: "I feel like I'm borrowing his will power. It's all in your head. My desire to eat the wrong foods is gone. I don't have to worry about diets." Mrs. Beatrice Barnett dropped 16 Ibs. in two weeks, boasted: "I've lost absolutely all taste for sweets and in-between snacks. It's helped my bronchial asthma too, and I sleep nights."

Psychiatrists are leery of group hypnosis: they say that a borderline mental case, thus hypnotized, may slip over the line into insanity. Baron insists: "My work is ethical and psychological. It's purely a research project."

Dollie Dimples (in private life, Mrs. Celesta Geyer of Orlando, Fla.) was heavier (555 Ibs.) last year, worked as a carnival fat lady. Then she had a heart attack and retired from show business. Last week, on her 50th birthday, five-foot Dollie was down to 154. Said she: "It's simple. All anyone has to do is diet properly." She did it by cutting down to 800 calories a day (normal U.S. diet: 3,000 calories).

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