In March 1954,
LIFE magazine ran an article titled “The Plague of Overweight” which in part followed the weight loss challenges faced by 205-pound Dorothy Bradley, 31, originally from Tennessee, began with a sentence that would not have been out of place in a 2013 news report: “the most serious health problem in the U.S. today is obesity.”
The article chronicled Dorothy’s efforts to lose weight; her desire to work in medicine; her successes (losing 60 pounds) and her backsliding (gaining it all back, and then some); and ultimately, something of a happy ending, as she lost and, as of the article’s publication, had kept off close to 70 pounds and earned a job as head nurse at a hospital in Kentucky.
Here are some rare pictures from
LIFE, many of which never ran in the magazine, made by photographer Martha Holmes to illustrate the March 1954 article.
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Bulging at beach in 1949, 197-pound Dorothy [Bradley] self-consciously leaves locker room for swim. She covered up embarrassment by being jolly and gregarious. |
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Dorothy Bradley, photographed for LIFE magazine article on obesity, 1949. |
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Hungry at drugstore after a day's work earning money for nursing school, Dorothy envies slim girl's milkshake, orders lemonade without sugar for herself. |
i wish the fulltext was available
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you can see most, if not all the txt in Google Books LIFE archive. Check it out: http://tinyurl.com/ol8ar5p
ReplyDeleteShe was attractive and cute, even chubby. She looks like she'd have been fun to hang around with. A real sweetheart. Who cares if she didn't look model-thin in a swimsuit?
ReplyDelete