On Thursday, just after Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced the possible declaration of a national emergency using the Notes app, the White House quietly released the results of President Trump’s annual physical, six days after the four-hour doctor’s visit occurred. Enough time had passed that Dick Cheney’s former physician — who knows a thing or two or five about cardiovascular health — began to speculate about what sort of results the president might be concealing. Turns out, it’s nothing one of Trump’s oversize coats can’t hide: At 243 pounds, according to his BMI index, the president is obese.
The Body Mass Index — which measures weight divided by height, squared — certainly has its flaws, the primary one being that it cannot differentiate between fat and muscle. But considering that Trump’s BMI of 30.4 was derived from his self-reported height of six feet, three inches, it’s likely that his BMI measurement is much higher. According to the girther micro-movement of 2018, or anyone who’s seen a picture of the purportedly six-foot-three Trump next to the definitely six-foot-one Obama, the president may not be as tall as he says he is. According to the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, there’s also speculation among “several allies and associates” that Trump weighs more than he’s putting on.
After last year’s physical, outside physicians determined that Trump’s checkup revealed more serious issues than his then-doctor Ronny Jackson let on. Jackson claimed that Trump was in “excellent” health, despite having an LDL cholesterol count of 143 — well over the ideal level of 100 for “bad” cholesterol. A Stanford doctor interviewed by the Times said he would “definitely” be concerned about Trump’s risk of heart attack, if the president were one of his patients. To Trump’s credit — despite not losing the 10 to 15 pounds that Jackson recommended — last week’s physical showed that he did lower his cholesterol to 122, which is still 20 points above the preferred range.
According to Trump’s physician Sean Conley, the oldest-ever president, who reportedly drinks up to a dozen Diet Cokes a day, “remains in very good health overall.” No matter how you look at it, his health has declined since 2015 when his then-doctor Harold Bornstein declared: “Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
