“The most serious health problem in the U.S. today is obesity.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? But that pronouncement about obesity’s primacy in the hierarchy of national health problems is not new. Rather, it’s the opening line to a remarkable article published 60 years ago in LIFE magazine. This photographs made by Martha Holmes to illustrate that March 1954 article, titled “The Plague of Overweight.” Photo: Dorothy Bradley (left), photographed for LIFE magazine article on obesity, 1949. (Photo by Martha Holmes/Time & Life Pictures)

Brad Snead walks past melting ice on the Cook Inlet beach, Saturday, March 26, 2011, in Kenai, Alaska, while looking for agates. (AP Photo/Peninsula Clarion, M. Scott Moon)

Firework display from the top of the Sky Tower to welcome the New Year on January 1, 2015 in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Dave Rowland/Getty Images)

Street photographer Yassine Alaoui Ismaili follows 16-year-old Emeer Guesmi, aka B-boy Zulu Rema, as he trains and performs breakdance moves – all without the use of his legs. At a breakdance championship in Tunisia, Casablanca-based street photographer Yassine Alaoui Ismaili noticed an unusual competitor: Emeer Guesmi, dancing without the aid of his lower legs. He started following him as he trained and performed. (Photo by Yassine Alaoui Ismaili/The Guardian)

A history enthusiast, dressed as a soldier, marches before the re-enactment of Napoleon's famous battle of Austerlitz near the southern Moravian town of Slavkov u Brna, Czech Republic December 3, 2016. (Photo by David W. Cerny/Reuters)

Georgie Bain takes a selfie with her horse in “Best Friends” in Aberdeen, United Kingdom, Date Unknown. For the first time, the founders of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards have launched a photography award show giving proud pet owners a chance to show off their quirky pets. (Photo by Georgie Bain/Barcroft Images/Comedy Pet Photography Awards)

In this Wednesday, August 2, 2017 photo, Borre, an 8-year-old cat sits in a basket next to the canal on the Catboat shelter in Amsterdam, Netherlands. In the heart of the Dutch capital, on a canal near one of the busiest shopping streets, a floating animal sanctuary called The Catboat provides refuge for about 50 stray and abandoned felines. (Photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP Photo)

A Philippine boy collects used plastic bottles to be sold at a junk shop at Divisoria market in Manila on November 29, 2017. (Photo by Noel Celis/AFP Photo)