Fat in the Fifties: America's First Obesity Crisis

A riveting history of the rise and fall of the obesity epidemic during 1950s and 1960s America.

Metropolitan Life Insurance Company identified obesity as the leading cause of premature death in the United States in the 1930s, but it wasn't until 1951 that the public health and medical communities finally recognized it as "America's Number One Health Problem." The reason for MetLife's interest? They wanted their policyholders to live longer and continue paying their premiums. Early postwar Am...