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"Not much can be said about Taft's health without saying a great deal about his size"
1a.
Taft was 5 feet 11.5 inches tall
2.
He weighed 243 pounds when he graduated from college
3a
and, by all accounts, carried it well. By age 48, when he had been Secretary of War for two
years, he weighed 320 pounds
3b.
Under the guidance of English physician
Dr. N. E. Yorke-Davies,
he lost 70 pounds over the next year and a half
3b.
But two years after that, he was once again over 300 pounds
MORE.
He weighed 335-340 pounds when he left the White House [see photo
MORE
]. He then lost weight rapidly, dropping to 270 in a year and a half. The summer before he
died, he weighed 244 pounds, just one pound more than his college weight. Details and graphs
are available on the Apneos web site and in reference
4.
Taft was big almost from birth. It's clear, however, that he had an enormous appetite.
SEE BELOW
Taft's size impressed some people, but often made him the butt of jokes
MORE.
Note: Judged solely by body mass index, a 5-foot 11-inch person weighing more than 290 pounds
is severely obese.
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Ira Smith, who worked directly for nine Presidents, tells this interesting story about Taft and his appetite
5a:
The troubles of William Howard Taft, however, were not the usual presidential woes that became familiar to me. One of Mr. Taft's troubles was food. He loved it, and the more food he could get, the more he loved it. The rub was that after he moved into the White House, his doctor and Mrs. Taft were constantly on the alert to enforce a diet that would get rid of some of his surplus poundage. Mrs. Taft might be reasonably described as a strong-minded woman. She took dieting seriously -- for the President -- and this led to a lot of talk that in a less famous household might have been called nagging. |
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a p.167
Comment: Devotes one chapter to each President, through Clinton. Written for the layperson, well-referenced, with areas of speculation clearly identified, Dr. Zebra depends heavily on this book. Dr. Bumgarner survived the Bataan Death March and has written an unforgettable book casting a physician's eye on that experience.
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a p.1072 b p.287
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a pp.66-69
Comment: Ira Smith was a peppery fellow who ran the White House mail room from 1897 to 1948. He started working during the administration of William McKinley and was the only mail room staffer until the volume of mail made it necessary to hire help during the administration of Franklin Roosevelt.
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