--- title: World Health Day—How Many Calories to Cut for Health in 1964 description: On World Health Day, here's a look back at the foods Americans had to give up to be healthy, as captured by LIFE magazine in the 1960s. canonical: https://time.com/4707185/eating-too-much-1964/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-04-07T12:30:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:58:59.581Z og:title: World Health Day—How Many Calories to Cut for Health in 1964 og:description: "Horrors! We're Eating Too Much" declared the headline og:url: https://time.com/4707185/eating-too-much-1964/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8c0552e16d46940e/6988bf18bc6cfc72aa3e0928/170320-calories-03.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1573 og:image:height: 885 og:image:alt: Calorie Counting 1964 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: World Health Day—How Many Calories to Cut for Health in 1964 twitter:description: "Horrors! We're Eating Too Much" declared the headline twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8c0552e16d46940e/6988bf18bc6cfc72aa3e0928/170320-calories-03.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Food You Can Give Up to Be Healthy, as Calculated in 1964 > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Apr 7, 2017 12:30 PM UTC  Caption from LIFE. Age 55-75—Minus 200 cal. Caption from LIFE. Age 55-75—Minus 200 cal. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Apr 7, 2017 12:30 PM UTC On [World Health Day](http://www.who.int/campaigns/world-health-day/2017/en/), each April 7, the United Nations [marks](http://www.who.int/campaigns/world-health-day/2017/event/en/) the founding of the World Health Organization with a campaign to raise awareness and promote action. Though the 2017 event is focused on the global health impact of depression, it’s also an opportunity to discuss other health issues that impact society in the U.S. and around the world — including being overweight, which, according to [some data,](http://time.com/4359637/obesity-americans-women-men/) affects as many as two-thirds of American adults. Though [fewer](http://time.com/4692274/americans-lose-weight-obesity/) Americans are trying to lose weight now than at other points in the past, recent studies have also found, the national concern with eating right is nothing new. The news in 1964, as reported [in the May 22 issue of LIFE ](https://books.google.com/books?id=YUEEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA3&pg=PA44#v=twopage&q&f=false)that year, was that the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council had declared that the average U.S. citizen “no longer needs the number of calories prescribed as healthy as recently as 1958.” Depending on age, sex and gender, the daily recommended calorie count was slashed by a couple hundred to reflect the fact that days had become a little bit too easy and relaxed for the good of Americans’ waists, as fewer people led the strenuous lives that had demanded such extra fuel. To mark that change in recommendations, LIFE had photographer Ralph Morse capture images of Americans of a few different demographic groups alongside the amount of food they could give up to make the cut, from 200 calories of ice cream to 400 calories of martinis. “This is not a lot of food,” LIFE noted — but still enough to “detract miserably” from a great meal.  From the May 22, 1964 issue of LIFE magazine, photos by Ralph Morse. LIFE Magazine  Caption from LIFE. Age 18-35—Minus 300 cal. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Age 18-35—Minus 200 cal. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Age 35-55—Minus 400 cal. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Age 35-55—Minus 300 cal. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Age 55-75—Minus 350 cal. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Age 55-75—Minus 200 cal. 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