Doubts about Trump's height and weight (Add)
Despite telling his doctor that he would like to lose 10 to 15 pounds, President Trump gained weight over the past year and is now officially obese.
At 243 Pounds, Trump Tips the Scale Into Obesity
The president was weighed last week as part of his annual physical, and is now at 243 pounds, according to Dr. Sean Conley, the White House physician, a four pound gain since last year’s physical. At 6 feet 3 inches tall, Mr. Trump now has a body mass index of 30.4. Anything over 30 is considered obese.
Dr. Conley, a Navy commander and the director of the White House medical unit, reported Mr. Trump’s weight without comment in a memorandum describing some results of the physical that was released by the White House. After a team of 11 specialists examined the president for four hours at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Dr. Conley said the president was in “very good health” and was expected to remain so “for the remainder of his presidency and beyond,” but did not release any other details.
Mr. Trump, 72, the oldest president to ever take office, is known for his love of fast food and pride in not exercising, and his weight has been a moving target in recent years. In 2016, Mr. Trump’s former personal physician, Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, said he weighed 236 pounds. In 2015, Dr. Bornstein said he had lost at least 10 pounds over the previous year. But Dr. Bornstein did not report the specific weights at either point in time.
Obesity is a major public health problem in the United States, where 93.3 million adults were obese in 2015-2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Obese individuals are at increased risk of dying from all causes of disease. Among the particular risks are diabetes, stroke, some cancers, clinical depression and other mental disorders.
After last year’s exam, Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, the White House physician at the time, recommended that the president improve his diet by cutting back on hamburgers and beefing up on salads. “He would like to lose 10 to 15 pounds,” Dr. Jackson said then. “We talked about diet and exercise a lot. He’s more enthusiastic about the diet part than the exercise part, but we’re going to do both.”
But Mr. Trump apparently did not follow the plan.
Mr. Trump is not required to release any of his medical findings. But in recent decades, it has become a custom for presidents to authorize their doctors to provide detailed findings after such checkups. But the memorandum released six days after Mr. Trump’s exam was sparse. It did not detail the physical examinations that Mr. Trump underwent, or their results, as the White House physician did for President Barack Obama.
The most striking aspect of the release was Mr. Trump’s weight. But Dr. Conley also said the president’s rosuvastatin dose, used to help control his cholesterol, has increased to 40 milligrams per day, up from 10.
The president’s cholesterol was elevated, at 196, with an LDL measurement of 122 and an HDL level of 58. It was not clear when Mr. Trump’s doctors raised the dose, and when the cholesterol measurements were made, as a cholesterol test can be administered from the White House at any time.
Last year, Mr. Trump’s LDL measurement was 143, and his doctor said he hoped a higher dose of Crestor would help him lower his LDL to under 120 over the next 12 months, a goal Mr. Trump did not meet even though his LDL levels moved in the right direction.
The memo from Dr. Conley also said Mr. Trump was never under sedation or anesthesia during his checkup. It was not clear whether he either did not have a colonoscopy, which the White House had said he was due for in the coming year, or had a virtual colonoscopy, which can be conducted without anesthesia. In 2010, Mr. Obama underwent a virtual colonoscopy.
Dr. Conley also said physical exams did not show any changes in the condition of Mr. Trump’s eyes, ears, nose, mouth, teeth, gums, heart, lungs, skin and gastrointestinal and neurological systems.
Last year, when many of Mr. Trump’s critics had raised questions about his erratic behavior and mental state, the president asked Dr. Jackson for a cognitive test designed to screen for neurological impairment. He received a perfect score on that test, known as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test, and the military doctor said there was no evidence that Mr. Trump suffered from any mental issues that would prevent him from performing his duties in office.
The White House did not say whether the doctors repeated the Montreal test this year or performed similar ones. The White House also did not list what kinds of specialists examined Mr. Trump, what their areas of expertise are or if any of them were psychologists or psychiatrists.
This year’s report on Mr. Trump’s condition had none of the theatrics that surrounded the release last year of Mr. Trump’s medical results when Dr. Jackson delivered a report at the podium in the White House briefing room, and took questions from reporters.
“It’s called genetics,” Dr. Jackson said of the president’s good health. “I told the president if he had eaten healthier over the last 20 years, he might live to be 200.”
Dr. Jackson’s performance was widely mocked for mirroring the hyperbolic language of the president he had examined, and for whom he appeared to be performing. But the fawning language appeared to appeal to at least an audience of one: Mr. Trump soon nominated Dr. Jackson to serve as secretary of veterans affairs.
Dr. Jackson later withdrew his nomination after allegations of misconduct during his time as a physician in the White House. He still serves in the White House medical unit, but no longer in the position of the president’s physician.
