Wu Lingling, a nurse from Central Hospital of Shanghai Fengxian District says goodbye to her husband Zhao Kun before leaving for Wuhan at Shanghai South Railway Station in east China's Shanghai, January 27, 2020. A team comprised of 50 medical workers from 40 hospitals in Shanghai left for Wuhan City on Monday to aid the novel coronavirus control efforts there. (Photo by Ding Ting/Xinhua News AgencyAlamy Live News)

Visitors wear shirts with an image of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong at the Shanghai World Expo site in Shanghai, May 2, 2010. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

Shanghai Ballet dancers wearing masks practise in a dance studio in Shanghai, China, as the country is hit by an outbreak of the novel coronavirus, February 20, 2020. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

Radio City Music Hall Rockettes perform after days of rehearsal and routine polished to perfection at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City on July 26, 1949. (Photo by Ivan Dmitri/Getty Images)

People in quarantine exercise in front of their homes amid Covid-19 full lockdown of the city in Shanghai, China, 27 April 2022. According to the Shanghai Health Commission on 27 April, there were 48 new Covid-19 deaths, 1,606 locally transmitted cases, and 11,956 local asymptomatic infections, in Shanghai city. Despite the death toll rising in Shanghai, the number of daily infections has gradually declined. (Photo by Alex Plavevski/EPA/EFE)

A coach wipes away tears and comforts a girl who was feeling tired during gymnastics lessons at the Shanghai Yangpu Youth Amateur Athletic School in Shanghai, China, May 4, 2016. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

From the waters edge a New York policeman urges two young children to put their bathing costumes back on. (Photo by Ed Clarity/Keystone/Getty Images). July 1949

“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)