Allie Labutis wears a painted “Merica” on her thigh during the fifth annual Made in America Music Festival in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania September 3, 2016. (Photo by Mark Makela/Reuters)
Miss California Crystal Lee performs during the Miss America 2014 pageant, Sunday, September 15, 2013, in Atlantic City, N.J. (Photo by Mel Evans/AP Photo)
“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)
Miss Hawaii Allison Chu waves to the crowd as she holds one of her shoes during the 2017 Miss America pageant “Show Us Your Shoes” parade Saturday, September 10, 2016, in Atlantic City. (Photo by Chris Szagola/AP Photo)
Miss Ohio Mackenzie Bart displays her shoe during the Miss America Shoe Parade at the Atlantic City boardwalk, Saturday, September 13, 2014, in Atlantic City, N.J. (Photo by Julio Cortez/AP Photo)
One of only three active female blimp pilots in the world, Kristen Arambula guides her passengers towards the Goodyear blimp “Spirit of America” in Carson, California August 5, 2015. Christened in 2002, the air ship is being retired after 8,000 flights and replaced with a newer more modern version named the “Spirit of Innovation” in September. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)
(2nd from R) Miss Georgia Betty Cantrell reacts to advancing, en route to victory, at the Miss America Pageant at Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, September 13, 2015. (Photo by Mark Makela/Reuters)
A gaucho is unseat by a wild horse during the annual celebration of Criolla Week in Montevideo, March 30, 2015. Throughout Easter Week, “gauchos”, the Latin American equivalent of the North American cowboy, from all over Uruguay and neighboring Argentina and Brazil will visit Montevideo to participate in the Criolla Week to win the best rider award. The competition is held from March 29 to April 5 this year. (Photo by Andres Stapff/Reuters)