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Go Home Guess Chris Christie's Weight!

TIMOTHY NOAH SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

Guess Chris Christie's Weight!

BY TIMOTHY NOAH

Michael Kinsley, my friend and former boss at the New Republic and Slate, has a Bloomberg column today arguing that Chris Christie's fatness is a legitimate issue in judging his fitness (no pun intended) to be president. Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado, argues elsewhere on this Web site that it isn't a legitimate issue, or, if it is, it isn't clear whether it's a minus or a plus. I take a more scientific approach to this question. Earlier this week I surveyed America's fattest presidents (defined as those with a Body Mass Index of 30 or more) and found, based on Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s 1996 "greatness" rankings, that collectively these lipo-Americans fell into the "average" category as presidents, albeit at its higher end. As some readers pointed out, it was a small sample--only five presidents were in the 30-plus range, and one of them was the almost pathologically vigorous Theodore Roosevelt. (Chester Arthur, 28.7, and Bill Clinton, 28.3, were our sixth- and seventh-fattest presidents, but being shy of 30 they did not meet the medical definition of obesity. Interestingly, we have only ever had one president who was medically obese and also a Democrat. That was Grover "Where's My Pa?" Cleveland. Three of the others were Republicans and the fifth was a Whig. Draw whatever conclusions you like.)

It seems clear that, whether people argue that Christie's weight is a legitimate issue or whether they argue it's an illegitimate one, we're going to be talking for some time about ... Christie's weight. Shouldn't we therefore at least know what that weight is? As best I can determine the man has never made such information public. Presumably if he enters the race he'll end up disclosing it, along with his tax records and his college transcripts. But why wait? In his book The Wisdom of Crowds James Surowiecki wrote about the eerie accuracy of crowd-sourced estimates about, say, how many marbles were in a jar. You just take all the estimates, average them, and poof!--you get something very, very close to the actual number. As individuals we are stupid but collectively we are geniuses. (I would have thought you'd take the median, to screen out the outliers, but apparently outliers have views that warrant equal attention--a lesson often forgotten in the policy realm.) This theory works better in some contexts than in others--the New York Times has spent the better part of 20 years constantly recalibrating its best-seller lists to make American reading habits seem less appalling--but apparently its efficacy in the realm of simple objective facts is unchallenged.

In that spirit, I invite TNR subscribers to offer, in the comment section below, estimates of Chris Christie's weight. I will then compute the average, and we'll call that Christie's weight until better information becomes available.

Update: It seems to be Debate The Saliency of Christie's Weight Day. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post says aye ("It costs Medicare $1,723 more a year for an obese beneficiary than a non-obese one") and Jonathan Chait of New York (and previous occupant of this space) says nay ("Why does his weight matter at all? The only real reasoning I see here is that American elites view obesity with disgust..."). If this keeps up we may have a culture war on our hands. For our purposes, the only relevant information in either piece is Robinson's bold estimate that Christie's weight "appears to exceed the 286 pounds that would place him [as a guy who stands 5' 11"] among the 5.7 percent of American adults whom NIH classifies as 'extremely obese.'" I'll put Robinson down for a guess of 290.

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43 comments

260

- subterran

September 30, 2011 at 10:13am

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310

- tara202

September 30, 2011 at 10:15am

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What do we win?

- Nusholtz

September 30, 2011 at 10:18am

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285

- benjamin81

September 30, 2011 at 10:37am

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If Christie were smart, he'd make a little fundraiser out of this. $10 for a guess, closest guess gets an autographed picture or something.

- benjamin81

September 30, 2011 at 10:38am

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How tall is he? I can't make a reasonable estimate without knowing that!

- ReganaD

September 30, 2011 at 10:40am

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Yes, I can google. It says 5'11". My husband is 6'3" and is too heavy at 240. But Christie makes him look svelte. Well, nothing could make him look svelte, he is a robustly built person. How about...315.

- ReganaD

September 30, 2011 at 10:47am

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21,600 jellybeans

- Tristan

September 30, 2011 at 10:48am

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He looks about 5'10-11ish to me. I'd say about 320.

- SEBASTIANSALING@HOTMAIL.COM

September 30, 2011 at 10:50am

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137

- Konstantin

September 30, 2011 at 11:10am

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Kilograms, of course. The letter K will have its day in the sun!

- Konstantin

September 30, 2011 at 11:13am

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375

- jzack

September 30, 2011 at 11:20am

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340.

- Johnson172

September 30, 2011 at 11:26am

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312.

- macphail

September 30, 2011 at 11:42am

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999. Ok, real guess=290.

- polcereal

September 30, 2011 at 11:45am

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295, + or - 10.

- liberalref

September 30, 2011 at 11:47am

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I just read Michael Kinsley's column on Chris Christie after I posted. I am a huge admirer of Kinsley and I rang him up (in 1996, if memory serves) in the early years of Slate after Microsoft hired him to be its first editor, to commend him for his excellent journalism. But his column on Christie is simply preposterous. Christie might make a good president or not so good a president, but his weight would have nothing to do with that. And I say this as a member of a distinct minority - trim and fit Americans.

- liberalref

September 30, 2011 at 11:56am

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don't forget, he has recently lost a bunch of weight (he is a yo yo dieter) so whatever predictions I make now is a total shot in the dark as to what his weight will be when he announces what it is (if ever). I am presuming he is would announce it when he was at his likely lowest and then he would chunk up afterwards pretending he was that low weight. But as of now based on a complex algorithm I devised which studied his length of stride, his height, the brand of his shirt, the kind of car he drives, and the estimated air speed velocity of an African swallow carrying a coconut and I will say he weighs 267

- blackton

September 30, 2011 at 11:59am

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libref, of course his weight is a huge issue, being morbidly obese is one of the worst risk factors any person can have. I seriously doubt he has the stamina to run a nationwide campaign, let alone run the country. We are not talking about a Bill Clinton pot belly (and remember even that and his bad diet led him to his heart surgery) we are talking about real obesity. Based on his weight his life expectancy is between 13 and 20 years less than for fit people, which means there is a very real chance of his dying while in office, add to the stress of being President (have you seen how much gray Obama has gotten in just 3 years?) and it would be crazy to risk voting for him.

- blackton

September 30, 2011 at 12:14pm

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I think a lot of these estimates are way too high... he has very fat face... I'm going to say 250.

- jblumenfel

September 30, 2011 at 12:55pm

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Blackton, I'm pretty sure you have a wrong variable in that. It should be TWO coconuts.

- ReganaD

September 30, 2011 at 1:00pm

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Jblumenthal--I think he has more than a fat face. Suits are good for disguising how fat you are. But when you look at how wide he is, and how tiny his hands look against the bulk of him in the suit, it looks 300-y to me.

- ReganaD

September 30, 2011 at 1:12pm

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I just bet that if Chris Christie were a Democrat giving hell to the starboard side, that people here would shut up about his weight.

- liberalref

September 30, 2011 at 1:15pm

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Anwar al-Awlaki killed in Yemen Republicans blame Obama for taking so long, while at the same time giving credit to GWB for having the courage to torture which somehow led to this happening.

- blackton

September 30, 2011 at 1:19pm

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liberalref uh...bullshit. If a morbidly obese Democrat tried to run I would question his physical fitness as well. What part of morbidly obese do you not understand?

- blackton

September 30, 2011 at 1:23pm

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325.

- Scott Bixby

September 30, 2011 at 1:31pm

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Chait is worth reading on this subject http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/09/chris_christie_is_fat_so_what.html

- subterran

September 30, 2011 at 1:33pm

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libref, remember Paul Tsongas? he ran even though he promised he was in remission from Cancer, he never even survived to what would have been his re-election time. It would have been a disaster. I remember thinking then that he wasn't thinking clearly and I would never have voted for him so don't accuse me of arguing in bad faith, it is total bullshit.

- blackton

September 30, 2011 at 1:33pm

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My guess: he's just a LIGHTWEIGHT!!!

- mlpcivlit

September 30, 2011 at 1:35pm

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What part of "you are a truculent left ideologue" don't you understand?

- liberalref

September 30, 2011 at 2:09pm

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305 lbs, or 138.63 kilograms.

- NR039835

September 30, 2011 at 3:38pm

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Important question: Is he a person who eats to compensate for stress? If so, his current weight is going to go way, way up on the campaign trail and then escalate even more after he's elected. Has he gained or lost weight since being elected governor. Somebody should look into that. 285

- propjoe

September 30, 2011 at 4:08pm

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Black - didn't you live in NJ back in the day? I remember you being a huge fan of Christine Todd Whitman as well as Chris Christie when he was first elected. I think his obesity is disqualifying absolutely, but I suspect that's only going to be a coastal yack yack/media opinion - he's polling really well so far today against Obama. I bet he'll run.

- WandreyCer

September 30, 2011 at 4:10pm

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People, any estimate below 300# is not reasonable. The guy is just way heavier than that - look at those pictures of him in shirtsleeves with Obama. I'm going with 320.

- rriley

September 30, 2011 at 4:34pm

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I agree rriley, at least. There was a startling photo on the front page of the NYT of Christie shaking hands with Obama when Obama got off the plane after hurricane Irene. I was shocked at Christie's hugeness. (BTW Christie was very classy during all that, praised the Obama admnistration - Christie did need the emergency money desperately, but he still deserves credit for being civic minded instead of finding something, anything to be petty about - a rarity among modern Republicans). The two of them standing next too each other was seriously pitiful, I actually felt bad for Christie. He was so enormous he looked almost fragile. He was minimum three times Obama's size.

- WandreyCer

September 30, 2011 at 4:53pm

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OK I went too far, twice his size: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/nyregion/obama-visits-flood-ravaged-new-jersey.html?scp=3&sq=%22Christie%22%20and%20%22Obama%22%20and%20%22Irene%22&st=cse

- WandreyCer

September 30, 2011 at 5:01pm

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I cannot wait for the ad that begins "Chris Christie said that he was not qualified to be president ..."

- NR409654

September 30, 2011 at 5:02pm

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wandrey, corzine was terrible, and Christie ran a moderate campaign, somehow he turned into an obnoxious blowhard, a stereotypical Jersey guy. The successful Jersey governors have been a lot more Summit horse and pony show types (Kean, Whitman) who knew how to work with Democrats. Christie just seems to like to pick fights and raid pension funds, he threw away billions in federal funds for a much needed commuter tunnel because he didn't want NJ to pay 1/3 of the costs. He has been a big disappointment to me, not least also because he is at war with the teachers unions. I know Jersey schools, the Unions are not the problem. And I have known and worked with morbidly obese people, I had a boss who had a stroke and I had to pick up her work (and she was younger than Christie), morbid obesity is a serious health risk, I don't care about lesser offices but I just don't see Americans not being taken aback when Christie pulls out his inhaler at a rally and is sweating profusely. I don't think he will run unless he lost 100 pounds (Huckabee did, he put half of it back on but is still way down from before) Nor do I understand how my being a Democrat disqualifies me from noticing or commenting on the health risks of morbid obesity.

- blackton

September 30, 2011 at 5:10pm

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A little late, and after the polls closed, but as someone who knows 320 intimately, Cristie is probably about 285. At 5'11" it is really hard to get over 300. Not caying he can't do it, but 300 is a lot for someone under 6". And yes, his weight is a legitimate issue. It wouldn't bother me. But anyone can bring it up.

- CRS9TNR

September 30, 2011 at 7:44pm

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325, but I'm including the suit.

- perseus353

September 30, 2011 at 8:06pm

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Gov. Christie's weight not really going to matter once today's GOP smashes him to a gazillion molecules over his 2nd Amendment heresies. Just popped in to see the comments - Christie's asthma is the real problem, even if his mass is mostly muscle - I once knew a weightlifter who had a 54" chest but looked fat even tho it was muscle, so we really need to see a photo that we really should not want to see, like Bill Clinton's bare legs....

- K2K

October 1, 2011 at 12:53am

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5'11, 320? He'd be a decent DII O-line prospect.

- sandiego

October 2, 2011 at 1:06pm

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Of Presidents who died in office, four died of "natural causes," and four died by assassination. According to the Secret Service web site: Secret Service agents receive continuous advanced training throughout their careers. In part, this training consists of regular firearms requalification and emergency medicine refresher courses. I presume the training means that if a President drops with a heart attack (or some other medical "incident" such as a stroke), members of his security detail would respond appropriately. It would be very educational and perhaps inspiring to see one of those grim-faced people always in discreet attendance performing CPR on our leader. Definitely something to look forward to. I may vote for Christie (if he is nominated) just for the entertainment value.

- skahn

October 2, 2011 at 2:55pm

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