From Rude Rural Rhymes by Bob Adams, New York: The Macmillan Company; 1925; pp. 169-170.
ANTI-FAT
If more of fat than lean and bone
Is found along your central zone,
And you admit within your soul,
If you should fall, that you would roll,
Think less of victuals, less of quiet
And more of exercise and diet.
Let me advise, in due proportions,
The morning Walter Camp contortions.
I’ve taught my uncle, aunt and cousin
To take each day their Daily Dozen.
But, as the old hymn says of heaven,
No other rules than this is given,
That you must fight if you would win,
Deny yourself if you’d be thin;
Cut out the sugar, starch and fat.
The punkin pies and things like that.
O brothers in this noble cause,
Pray work your limbs and not your jaws.
O bald-head boys once young and nifty,
Who now are forty-odd and fifty,
You should have gardens growing thrifty.
Peel off your coats and prove your worth;
Cut off the inches from your girth
[170]
By planting murphies in the earth.
To give the work your system needs,
Between the rows sprout harmful weeds.
Go get a hoe and roughly treat them;
Raise lots of spuds, but do not eat them.
Great is the hoe and great its use
To all fat men who would reduce.
So grab the same and swing it thusly
Among the rag-weed and the pusley.