“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)

A Macedonian police officer hits a stranded migrant attempting to cross the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija, Macedonia December 2, 2015. Picture taken from the Greek side of the border. (Photo by Alexandros Avramidis/Reuters)

A hunter holds a shot female pheasant next to his dog “Lola”, a Deutsch female Kurzhaar, during the first day of the Italy hunting season in Castell'Azzara, Tuscany, central Italy, September 20, 2015. The number of hunters in Italy has been decreasing, from 1,701,853 in 1980 to 751.876 in 2007, with a percentage reduction of 55.8%, according to the latest available numbers from the national statistics bureau ISTAT. (Photo by Max Rossi/Reuters)

A visitor wears an outfit as she watches the St. George NextGen show for Fashion Week in Sydney on May 16, 2017. (Photo by Peter Parks/AFP Photo)

Andrey Karr from Western Riders Slacklines at sunset above big waves in Nazare, Portugal on December 27, 2017. (Photo by Aidan Williams/National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest)

Frances Fowler leads the Bowie VFD Marching Thoroughbreds in the Bowie 4th of July Parade in Bowie, Md., on July 4, 1976. (Photo by James M. Thresher/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Gymnast Ahmad al-Sawas performs gymnastic moves near damaged buildings in the rebel-held Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria March 26, 2016. As Syrian gymnast Ahmad al-Sawas watched his country fall apart, his Olympic dream collapsed too. The last national champion before the fighting began, he knew that supporting the anti-government side in the five-year-old civil war would prevent him from being selected for the Rio Games. (Photo by Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters)

A visitor and autumn foliage are reflected in the lake at Stourhead gardens in Wiltshire, Britain, November 2, 2018. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)