“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 South Carolina Suzi Roberts competes in the swimsuit competition of the 97th Miss America Competition in Atlantic City, New Jersey U.S. September 10, 2017. (Photo by Mark Makela/Reuters)

A car rolls south along the Dalton Highway near Coldfoot, Alaska, USA, 03 September 2017. Stretching 414 miles (666 kilometers) north from central Alaska to Prudhoe Bay, the Dalton Highway is one of America's northernmost roads and arguably its most remote. (Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA)

Alex Prager is an American art photographer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her photographs primarily use staged actors, models and extras to create “meticulously designed mise en scène”, often described as film-like and hyperreal. “Alex Prager: Silver Lake Drive” is at the Photographers’ Gallery, London, 15 June – 14 October 2018. Here: The Big Valley, Susie and Friends, 2008. (Photo by Alex Prager Studio/Lehmann Maupin Gallery)

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)

Natalie Burgener drops the bar behind her head while attempting to snatch 98 kilograms during the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Women's Weightlifting on March 4, 2012 in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)

Men stage an attack during a training session for the Olympic Torch Security Team who will be protecting the torch bearers and Olympic flame during the torch relay's progress through the UK, at the Metropolitan Police Training School on March 9, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Lewis Whyld – WPA Pool /Getty Images)

A young fan cheers while waiting for the ticker tape parade to celebrate the U.S. women's soccer team World Cup victory, Friday, July 10, 2015, in New York. The World Cup winning U.S. women's football team rolled up New York City's “Canyon of Heroes” on Friday, with a blizzard of confetti swirling overhead in the first ticker-tape parade honouring a women's sports team. (Photo by Adam Hunger/AP Photo)