Fat in the Fifties: America's First Obesity Crisis

Nicolas Rasmussen's Fat in the Fifties: America's First Obesity Crisis explores the emergence and disappearance of obesity as a public health concern in the United States. The book investigates how obesity became framed as a crisis in the 1950s, driven by shifts in epidemiology, biomedicine, and public health initiatives, particularly concerning heart disease. It examines the evolving medical and cultural attitudes toward fatness, including the rise of psychological explanations and the use of diet pills. Rasmussen analyzes how public health priorities shifted away from obesity in the late 1960s due to factors like new definitions of overweight, focus on dietary fats, and societal changes that embraced diverse lifestyles. The work also discusses the resurgence of obesity as a concern in later decades, highlighting the social, political, and economic factors that influence its perception as a health crisis.

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