Life — January 4, 1923 — page 10: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a humorous comic strip about weight loss and scales. The narrative follows a woman who resolves to weigh herself less frequently as a weight management strategy. The top panel references "Doctor Coué" and his disciple, likely alluding to Émile Coué, a popular early 20th-century French psychologist known for "autosuggestion" and positive thinking methods. The joke progresses through six panels showing the woman repeatedly using a scale while claiming to weigh less often, eventually abandoning the scale entirely while gaining weight. The punchline—"And lesser in every weigh"—is a pun on "weigh" versus "way," mocking the ineffectiveness of avoidance as a weight-loss strategy. The satire critiques both fad dieting and self-deceptive wellness trends of the era.