"Fitter families for future firesides": Florence Sherbon and popular eugenics.

In the 1920s, eugenicists adapted public health contests to create "Fitter Family for Future Firesides" contests. Designed by Mary T. Watts and Dr.

The Popeye principle: selling child health in the first nutrition crisis.

The cartoon character Popeye the Sailor was capable of superhuman feats of strength after eating a can of spinach. Popeye ate spinach because the association of spinach with strength was a product of the first national nutrition crisis in the United States: the 1920s fight against child malnutrition. Spanning the first three decades of the twentieth century, the malnutrition crisis arose from the confluence of many different events including the invention of nutrition science and new standards for height and weight; international food crises created by world war; the rise of consumerism, advertising, and new forms of mass media; and Progressive reformers' conviction that education was a key component of any solution.