“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)

In this handout photo provided by Warner Brothers Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures, Tom Cruise plays Lieutenant Colonel Bill Cage, a soldier who replays his last day while trying to fight aliens, in director Doug Liman's “All You Need Is Kill”. The film is set to premiere on March 14, 2014. (Photo by David James/Warner Brothers Pictures)

A man passes by an unfinished street art graffiti made in a stairway by French street artists Zag and Sia in Paris on March 1, 2016. The two artists drew inspiration from famous “Liberty Leading the People” (La Liberte guidant le peuple) painting by French Eugene Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830 and viewed as a symbol of the French Republic. (Photo by Joel Saget/AFP Photo)

People play on a beach along the Arabian Sea on a hot summer day in Mumbai, India, April 29, 2016. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

Oscar-winning directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known collectively as the Daniels, march with Writers Guild of America members outside Sunset Bronson Studios and Netflix Studios, after union negotiators called a strike for film and television writers, in Los Angeles, California, U.S., May 3, 2023. (Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

A baby bush-baby in a set of scales at London Zoo shortly after birth. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images). 10th August 1938

A mahout (elephant driver) walks a baby elephant across the city streets at night September 27, 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand. (Photo Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

A dog catches a wave during the Surf City Surf Dog Contest in Huntington Beach, California September 27, 2015. (Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)