Fat Norms and the AMA

This article features images from the AMA Archives and brief narration of their importance for how Americans have oriented themselves to body habitus norms. In the early 20th century, the United States, as an industrialized nation with more food than ever, began to grapple with obesity. Questions about how to measure weight were being asked by the mid-20th century, as health professionals needed an indicator of obesity to accompany medicine's attempts to help patients and populations control it as a health risk.