<p>[Looking</a> for a fitness buddy? Get a dog - Health - msnbc.com](<a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44667201/ns/health/t/looking-fitness-buddy-get-dog/#.Tonabs0rNWw]Looking”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44667201/ns/health/t/looking-fitness-buddy-get-dog/#.Tonabs0rNWw)</p>
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<p>His BMI is well over 40. Mine was about 40 and I wasn’t close to being that fat. Having said that, I doubt that Christie’s weight is anywhere near the health risk of the current President’s smoking. That’s about the worst health risk you can have.</p>
<p>Christie is almost certainly insulin resistant to a very high degree and is being bombarded with nutrition and diet advance that simply won’t work for him. He will need a diet that changes his metabolism and reduces the insulin resistance. That is the exact opposite of the diet most nutritionists and public health policy folk would offer him and counter to the media-driven notions of a “healthy” fat loss diet. Put a guy like that on a “low fat” diet with “healthy grains” and he’ll get fatter and fatter.</p>
<p>For me, it is important that our President be a good role model for Americans, in every facet of his/her life. This does not mean s/he needs to be perfect. Of course this will be from each individual’s own perspective, and that is our right.</p>
<p>I could vote for a candidate who is a bit overweight, but not currently obese. Current smoker - no (okay if s/he quit). Current alcoholic - no (former - okay). Cheated on spouse - no. Too religious - no. Divorced when children were young - no, unless unusual justification.</p>
<p>The President is supposed to be one of the best of “us.” I can’t elect as President someone who is either less smart or disciplined as me in those areas, because I don’t think I’m outstanding and didn’t find it unreasonably hard to meet certain minimum standards.</p>
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<p>Didn’t stop a lot of people from voting for Bush - Cheney. While Bush was a health and fitness nut, Cheney’s health was questioned from the beginning (already had heart attacks before being selected to run with Bush).</p>
<p>Or Clinton, not known for healthy habits. Obama’s habits are healthy in most ways, except one: smoking, which he apparently stopped in 2010:</p>
<p><a href=“Businessweek - Bloomberg”>Businessweek - Bloomberg;
<p>People get motivated to lose weight for a variety of reasons. Weddings, birthdays, sick of not fitting into anything in the closet! So thinking on the positive side —maybe a run for President will help be a motivating factor for him to lose some pounds.</p>
<p>Just saying he thought it was important to lose weight and be healthier may just garner him some votes! But running for president in 2011 is not the same at 1911----TV tells all—visual in in—so yes, I do believe his weight may be a factor to those who are looking for a reason not to vote for him.</p>
<p>Bovertine: exactly. The Republican party right now is turning itself inside out trying to find a single candidate that they think is electable–that’s why Christie is being wooed, at all. It’s not a question, therefore, of a slate of candidates each of whom is fabulous, with one being ruled out because of some concern about his weight and health. It’s a question of ruling out this one person, who may or may not be a fabulous candidate, solely on the basis of his weight. If [and it’s a big if] this is the only candidate who represents everything you want, and you won’t vote for him because of his weight, to me this trivializes everything else you say you want. The inability to accept the good because it’s not perfect is all too pervasive in this country right now, and the paralysis caused by the inability to compromise on narrowly defined, subjective opinions masquerading as ideals has already cost us dearly.</p>
<p>I think there are probably many of us who would vote for a guy on life support who agreed with us on the key issues over an Olympic athlete with whom we disagreed. But if it’s a closer call (such as when we’re picking candidates), then I think health concerns matter.</p>
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<p>Different strokes for different folks, I’m of the belief that I don’t really care about any of that - I care about that person’s stance on the policy issues that are facing the state and / or nation, and about their demonstrated effectiveness in bringing about change. Whether they eat celery sticks or Big Macs on their private time is not a concern of mine - I’m not hiring them to be my personal trainer or nutritionist. Just like I really don’t care if they are married, divorced, single, whatever. What I dislike is hypocrisy (like a Newt Gingrich talking about the sanctity of marriage and not extending gays marriage rights, when he wasn’t a saint in his marriages). But absent hypocrisy, I wouldn’t really care about his personal life. </p>
<p>I am not from NJ, but I do believe that prior to the election, there was some ad out that showed CC huffing and puffing getting out of a limo and the announcer said something to the effect of “Chris Christie really likes to throw his weight around” (in the context of some supposed scandal - I don’t know the details). I thought that was low-class on the part of whoever put that commercial on. Attack the man’s policies, but I don’t see that attacking his weight is productive.</p>
<p>Agree completely, marysidney. Obama is a man of tremendous accomplishment - would it make sense not to vote for him because he hasn’t been able to kick the smoking habit (maybe he has by now but he was smoking in 2008)? Christie is being begged to enter the race, so clearly plenty of people think he has what they want in a candidate. Does it make sense not to vote for him because he’s obese? No one is perfect. Even on policy, I’ve only once found a candidate that held almost all of my views, and even this person had one policy that I disagreed with. There’s never a perfect candidate.</p>
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<p>The media image, though, was good. He was marketed as a jogger and he may have been a little overweight but it was small enough to overlook. Apparently he radically changed his diet recently after educating himself and has lost a lot of weight. For him, it wasn’t too late. He admits that he should have done this sooner.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, there was such an ad about Christie - I’ve seen it. It backfired.</p>
<p>I guess it depends on whether one votes “holistically” or just based on the stats. :)</p>
<p>“Didn’t stop a lot of people from voting for Bush - Cheney. While Bush was a health and fitness nut, Cheney’s health was questioned from the beginning (already had heart attacks before being selected to run with Bush).”</p>
<p>Most people pay much less attention to VP candidates’ health issues etc. than to those of the Presidential candidates.</p>
<p>Clinton appeared youthful and healthy. His taste for burgers and donuts was viewed as charming. I don’t think anyone worried too much about his cardiac health, particularly as he had clean stress tests every year. I’m glad he has had the opportunity to make the changes he needed to make.</p>
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Those changes included major bypass surgery a few years out of office and subsequent angioplasty. I suspect he had significant plaque while in office. And I believe most heart attacks are caused by plaques which would likely go undetected in stress tests.</p>
<p>As a moderate Democrat, I’d hate to see Christie ruled out because of his weight. He’s one of the few Republican potential candidates whose views aren’t extreme to the point of being dangerous, imo. I also think he has a better chance at beating the President than the current contenders. He can get people emotionally fired up in a way that none of the others can. I sort of hope he runs, although I might regret it!</p>
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<p>Yes, Biden’s brain tumor being another example.</p>
<p>Genes seem to be as important as actual current weight. Are his parents / aunts & uncles all still living? I’m assuming his grandparents may have already passed, but how old were they when they died? What about siblings? Anyone know?</p>
<p>Biden had a couple of aneurysms (not a brain tumor) in 1988. What continuing risk that presents, I don’t know.</p>
<p>We have had a number of presidents who (in my opinion, at least) were not really healthy enough. One of them was JFK, and another was Reagan (at least in his second term). I think if everything about their health had been known, probably a lot of people still would have voted for them in the general election–but it might have had an impact on whether they should have been the nominees of their parties.</p>
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<p>As another moderate Democrat, I completely agree. At least he’s not some right-wing social conservative.</p>