A British woman plays a piano designed especially for people who are confined to bed. Date: 1935. (Photo by Mary Evans Picture Library/Caters News)

“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)

A truck carrying gold miners across the Sahara desert to far northern Niger drives outside Agadez, Niger, May 9, 2016. (Photo by Joe Penney/Reuters)

Felix Guirola, 52, rides a homemade bike with an advertising banner in Havana, Cuba, July 20, 2016. The handyman, who loves heights, provides advertising space for companies on homemade bikes that tower up to 7.5 meters (24.61 ft). He rides them around Havana in an ingenious way of getting around strict marketing regulations in the Communist-ruled island. (Photo by Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)

A Turkana tribeswoman reacts after an accidental fire of a shelter in Turkana settlement in Ilemi Triangle, Kenya, July 15, 2019. The Ilemi Triangle, a disputed sliver of land along the border with Ethiopia and South Sudan, is the northernmost tip of Turkana, Kenya's poorest county. A series of deadly clashes between the Turkana community and other ethnic groups that they said had crossed from South Sudan have put people on edge, to the point of posting lookouts. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Early morning paddle boarder enjoys late days of summer on Trent Severn Waterway in Rosedale, Ont., Thursday, September 3, 2020. (Photo by Canadian Press/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

(L–R) Unknown, Alan Jones, Chrissie Hynde, Vivienne Westwood and punk fashion icon Jordan at Kings Road fashion shop «Sеx» run by Westwood and Malcolm McLaren in London, United Kingdom, 1976. (Photo by David Dagley/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Joshua Patino stands on a ladder to put finishing touches on a giant dinosaur exhibit at PAX East in the Boston Convention and Expo Center, Thursday, April 21, 2016, in Boston. PAX East, an annual celebration of gaming culture, is expected to draw tens of thousands of visitors Friday through Sunday. It's a place where serious gamers can preview unreleased video games and devices, compete in tournaments, hear live music and meet others for whom gaming is a way of life. (Photo by Elise Amendola/AP Photo)