<p>How can a morbidly obese president look into the eye of his people and tell them to tighten up their belts? (as someone said on CNN)</p>
<p>If he is fat due to avoiding exercise and eating crap, he does not have the will power to be the president. If he has medical issues that led to his conditions, I will not vote for him either, because I do not want a president who can drop dead in the middle of making an important decision. Sorry, this is the job where health is an important issue (and Obama’s smoking bothers me, too).</p>
<p>BTW, Arnold’s buff body is not the epitome of fitness. I will never vote for anyone who was that much into pharmacological experimentation.</p>
<p>This is so true. I’m battling a health problem that makes it hard to keep weight on. Skinny is not all it’s cracked up to be.</p>
<p>Have known and worked with some absolutely brilliant people who ate a ton and were fat and also hugely productive and creative. They were too focused on their work to focus on how they looked. That simple. </p>
<p>There are lots of types of “fat” out there. It isn’t all stupidity and sloth.</p>
<p>It is entirely possible for a person to be extremely disciplined in some areas of life but have trouble controlling other areas. Being overweight, even for the usual reasons, does not imply a general lack of willpower.</p>
<p>Sewhappy- I’m surprised that with your obsession with the prestige of certain schools, that you don’t rule out the candidates based on where they went to college! </p>
<p>As I said, an obesity problem tells me something about a person. So does smoking. So does whether someone likes to shoot animals. My right to judge!</p>
<p>BB, The weight problem may very well be a result of lack of willpower in the areas of eating and exercise. But this does not mean that the overweight person is undisciplined in every area. I’m sure Christie works very hard at his job, and he has risen fast. </p>
<p>Obama exercises for 90 minutes a day, yet he has not been able to kick the smoking habit.</p>
<p>I don’t think being obese precludes one from running for president, but it’s definitely a disadvantage. If I liked someone’s politics I might vote for them even if I thought they were too old or too unhealthy, but I’d be looking to see who the vice presidential candidate was for sure! I know people who didn’t vote for McCain because they thought he was too old and Palin was too unprepared. They were staunch Republicans and didn’t vote for Obama either.</p>
<p>"What do our generals look like today where they have the understanding about health and fitness? "</p>
<p>I know the office of the president is not much like being in the military, but it’s commonly accepted that folks in the military are held to weight requirements, even officers with desk jobs.</p>
<p>"Height & Weight Charts
Each service has its own height and weight requirements for recruits. Follow the links below to find out each service’s height and weight standards. If you need to get in better shape, check out Stew Smith’s fitness column.</p>
<p>Those of you who would not vote for a fat candidate, if you were a college admissions director would you deny admission to fat student applicants and/or student applicants who are addicted to tobacco? (I am assuming you know whether the student is fat or a smoker, of course).</p>
<p>I have a brother-in-law like this. His father was a well-known musician
and died of a heart-attack while he was fairly young.</p>
<p>My brother-in-law has had some weight-related medical problems and
believe me, that can certainly take your focus off your work.</p>
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<p>Willpower is short-term thinking. You have to set in place systems
so that you don’t need to use willpower very often. That requires
planning. I would expect a President to be an excellent planner.</p>
<p>razorsharp, a college student is not a firefighter, police officer, Marine or the POTUS.</p>
<p>FYI - some college programs do have a fitness test. One of my coworkers was telling a story how their entire lab was trying to help a vet student get into better shape so she could pass the large animal course she was taking (yup, a veterinarian has to be fit enough to be able to move a large animal).</p>
<p>Ever walked around the Boston College campus? I’m often struck by how
attractive the students are there. Colleges can just give students a
few extra points for being on one or more athletic teams in high
school and that may result in better odds of a fit student body.</p>
<p>A new survey of 500 top colleges found that 10% of admissions officers acknowledged looking at social-networking sites to evaluate applicants. Of those colleges making use of the online information, 38% said that what they saw “negatively affected” their views of the applicant. Only a quarter of the schools checking the sites said their views were improved, according to the survey by education company Kaplan, a unit of Washington Post Co.</p>
<p>I would not rule out an obese student because I would hope college might change that (after the freshman 15, of course…). Smoker- choosing between 2 otherwise qualified applicants, smoker always loses in my book.</p>
<p>So Oprah’s 17 year old marathon results mean she’s currently thin? Or was she competent then but incompetent now that she packed back on a few? Nicely pasted definition of straw man though. Not sure of the relevance. Actually, the Oprah race statistics are more of a red herring than a straw man.</p>