“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)

Bikini Contest in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA. (Photo by Evan Hurd/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)

A model on the catwalk for the Tom Ford show at New York fashion week in New York, USA on September 6, 2017. (Photo by Swan Gallet/Shutterstock)

American actress, model, singer and activist Paris Jackson attends Comic-Con in San Diego, California, USA on July 21, 2018. (Photo by @parisjackson/Instagram)

Wildlife are hunted down for consumption or for sale in the India eastern state of Nagaland. Hunters can make a good living, with some bred for food or to be sold as pets. These baby parrots, photographed by Caisii Mao via Sipa USA, are seen after they were caught and preserved by a local hunter and for sale at a private residence in Dimapur, India north eastern state of Nagaland on Wednesday, July 24, 2013. (Photo by Caisii Mao/NurPhoto/Sipa USA)

A 210-kilogram-weight Epinephelussp was showed at China Fisheries & Seafood Expo in Fuzhou, Fujian, China on 24th October, 2014. (Photo by Top Photo/Sipa Press USA)

Prostitutes working on 10th Ave in New York, USA on June 29, 1997. (Photo by Jon Naso/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)