“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)

Pumpkins and a mock up skull are seen ahead of Halloween at Wilmersdorfer Strasse shopping street, as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak continues, in Berlin, Germany, October 26, 2020. (Photo by Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)

Kahuna, an injured loggerhead turtle, returns to the ocean after years of rehabilitation. It has been two years since Kahuna, a 209-pond loggerhead turtle, was rescued from the wild by biologists at FPL’s St. Lucie Power. Half of one of her flippers had been sliced off, and the other flipper was badly injured. On top of that, she had severe bone infection doctors tried for months to cure with antibiotics, only to have it come back once they stopped the medicine.

Photo: Kahuna is kept calm and steady on the gurney by staff and volunteers.

Miu Miu, a Chihuahua, poses at the pre-Westminster Fashion Show at Hotel Pennsylvania ahead of next week's Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on February 10, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Getty Images)

Masks based on real people's faces are diplayed at the Shuhei Okawara's mask shop in Tokyo, Japan on December 16, 2020. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)

A worker repairs fishing nets, which can stretch to more than 20 metres in length, in Sakon Nakhon, Thailand on August 12, 2021. (Photo by Chanwit Wanset/Solent New)

A seal infront of a passing cruise ship on the shore between Sandhaven village and Fraserburgh in Scotland in August 2023. (Photo by Mark Grant/Caters News Agency)

An actor dressed as Santa Claus and wearing a face mask to protect against coronavirus infection speaks with a boy during the New Year celebration in a shopping mall in St.Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, January 2, 2021. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)