This is a public domain photo that appeared in my Facebook feed not long ago. It is a 1951 senior class photo from a local high school here in Clermont County, Ohio.
What do you notice about these kids from the post World War II, Truman era?
Not one of them is obese.
If this photo had been taken in 2025, about 1 in 5 of these youngsters (21%) would have been clinically obese.
When I graduated from high school in 1986, the juvenile obesity rate hovered between 5 percent and 8 percent—measurable, but still low.
What was the juvenile obesity rate in 1951?
Zero to 2 percent. In other words, too low to meaningfully measure.
Not everything was better back then, of course. We can safely bet that many of these kids were smokers and drinkers (or would be, as they moved into full adulthood).
Mid-century automobiles were death traps, compared to vehicles today. Many people did not wear seatbelts. (Seat belt use was by no means universal even in the 1970s, during my early childhood. I frequently rode without a seatbelt in my early years.)
The Korean War was going on in 1951, too. At least some of the boys in this photo probably ended up in combat on the Korean Peninsula. Some of them may have died there.
But where juvenile obesity is concerned, at least, 1951 was better than 2026, hands down. Herein lies the proof that obesity is not a necessary human condition and certainly not for young people.
-ET