Doctors are sounding the alarm over Donald Trump’s weight.
Physicians say the 80-year-old president’s weight gain poses a serious risk to his health, months after the White House quietly acknowledged that he had gained 14 pounds since his previous physical.
“Addressing obesity to protect the president’s health should be a priority similar to ensuring Secret Service protections for his life,” Scott Kahan, a physician and the director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness, told The Washington Post.
In May, a medical report from the White House showed that the 6-foot-3 president weighed in at 238 pounds, placing him just 0.3 BMI points below the threshold for obesity. BMI is not considered a definitive diagnostic tool, but its use is widespread.
“We know that obesity is a strong risk factor for numerous health issues—as well as premature disability and death,” Kahan stressed to the Post.
David Kessler, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, spoke to the Post about the risks to all Americans from being overweight, while not commenting specifically on Trump.
“That fat around the midsection — that visceral adiposity — is fat around our liver, pancreas, our heart where it doesn’t belong,” he said.
Despite that, Trump appears to have little interest in his health, famously flaunting his love for McDonald’s and voicing his disinterest in exercise. In October, the chairman of the Republican National Committee recalled observing Trump’s grotesque diet on the campaign trail.
“He had hot fries waiting for him from McDonald’s. Then he had a Filet-O-Fish, a Quarter Pounder, and a Big Mac, and I think he combined two of them,” Joe Gruters, a Florida state lawmaker, told a local government podcast.
“I’m thinking to myself, how does the guy that’s as senior as him get away with eating all this McDonald’s on a consistent basis?”
In 2024, Trump appeared noticeably slimmer than his reported weight during the latter half of his first term. He was clinically obese then, with a BMI of 30.5 and a weight of 244 pounds. But throughout his second term, he’s inched closer to his heaviest.
Trump himself has acknowledged his heavyweight status. Just last month, while discussing former President William Howard Taft, widely regarded as America’s heaviest president, he appeared to draw an unprompted comparison to himself.
“He was a large man, very large,” Trump said of Taft. “He loved baseball. He’d go to baseball games, loved the hot dogs at the baseball games. He was our heaviest president. And I have to be careful because I don’t want to supersede his record. And a thing like that would be possible if I allowed it to happen.”
Self-awareness aside, Trump is known for dodging questions about his own health. Administration officials have regularly played down the significance of the purplish bruises on his hands, swollen ankles, and public events where he appears to fall asleep—and his weight is no different.
A spokesperson for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday. Previously, communications officials have asserted to the Beast that Trump, the oldest person ever inaugurated as president, is the “sharpest, most accessible and energetic” president.
