Childhood Obesity in America: Biography of an Epidemic

by Laura Dawes,
Psychology Today, June 10, 2014

Sponsored by a wide array of organizations, including the American Medical Association’s Committee for Public Health Education Among Women, the Congress of Mothers, and the Woman’s Home Companion, "Better Baby" contests were held across the United States in the first two decades of the twentieth century. The winners, virtually without exception, were pretty, personable – and plump.