The latest conspiracy theory, over which the media was aflutter, concerns alleged secret cells in the White House — fat cells. Dubbed the “Girther” movement, the suspicion is that President Trump is lying about his height and/or weight, said to be 6’3” and 239 lbs. The idea is that if he were an inch shorter, he’d qualify as medically obese. And, surely, that’s grounds for impeachment. That’s what the Cult of the Body would aver, anyway.
Firing up the troops, New York’s Daily News reported on the president’s excellent medical evaluation with the headline, “President Trump is overweight, doesn’t exercise or eat well, physical exam reveals.” The chatterboxes on The View claimed that since Trump’s New York driver’s license listed him at 6’2”, he must have grown an inch as a senior citizen (video below). And NBC producer Ken Dilanian tweeted, “Seeing a lot of skepticism over the idea that @realDonaldTrump weighs only 239 pounds. Would he step on a scale in public to prove it?”
Of course, you could just imagine the uproar if Hillary Clinton became president and were subjected to such demands. “This wouldn’t be happening if she were a man!” we’d hear. “Women are treated as objects — only they’re judged on their looks.” For the record, it appears Clinton’s weight is as secret as Kim Jong-un’s or Barack Obama’s college transcripts, which must mean she’s a svelte 130 and the TV is adding 50 pounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qe5O4pyNOk
In reality, Trump’s weight is an old story. More than a year ago there was talk about how he was 236 pounds and “just under obese” (video below), though Dr. Mehmet Oz seemed impressed with then-candidate Trump’s overall health.
Of course, this issue is much ado about nothing, or should be, in a world coming apart at the seams. Thus does the focus on presidential fat tell us more about the media than about Trump’s fitness.
Most simply, a media that has given Trump 90-percent negative coverage is looking to find fault, and, as pundit Tucker Carlson put it recently, the media “feel personal contempt and loathing for the president.” Moreover, a Left that has tried everything to scuttle Trump’s presidency — from attempting to get electors to switch their votes to encouraging Jill Stein to challenge election results to the Russia-collusion nonsense to getting the president declared crazy — is no doubt crestfallen that he aced his cognitive exam. So the media are going to glom onto anything they can, especially something capturing headlines.
Trump does, of course, have a 20-year-old college student’s diet (not sure if the kid wants it back or not). As Business Insider just wrote, considering reports that the president’s “‘major food groups’ are McDonald’s, KFC, pizza, and Diet Coke, as well as one [report] that says he tries to avoid non-chain restaurants out of fear of being poisoned, it’s fair to say Trump may need to make some changes.”
“According to Corey Lewandowski, his former campaign manager who wrote the book Let Trump Be Trump, the president would usually go 14 to 16 hours without eating, then have a full McDonald’s dinner of two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and a small chocolate shake — a total of 2,430 calories,” the site continued.
Now me, personally, I like this. It’s reminiscent of the appeal of ex-heavyweight champion George Foreman when he made his comeback and fought in his 40s at weights as high as 285. It’s a nice departure from Obama and his $100-a-pound Kobe beef. Trump not only talks like a regular guy; he eats like one. It’s another example of how, despite his wealth, he’s more Main Street than Wall Street.
Of course, the media exhibit selective concern over health. They were wholly uninterested in Clinton’s fainting, collapsing, odd behavior, and reported emotional outbursts during the campaign. Nor do they trouble over Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s continual brain freezes and slurring of words (talk about needing a cognitive test), even though she’ll be second in line to the presidency if the Democrats retake the House in November. And years ago they did a superb job of covering up JFK’s back problems and that FDR was actually in a wheelchair. The one thing all these individuals have in common, mind you, is that they’re Democrats.
Yet there’s a deeper issue here: a Cult of the Body that has made being overweight one of the new Deadly Sins. In a world where bullying is banned and judgmentalism judged harshly, making fun of the fat is fashionable. Going beyond mockery, there was even a 2008 proposal by three legislators in Mississippi — said to be the nation’s fattest state — to prohibit portly people from dining in restaurants. The politicians said they were just trying to make a point. Yet as I wrote in 2012, “I wonder, though, given that the vast majority of gun crime (98% in New York City) is committed by blacks and Hispanics, would these bold statesmen seek to ‘make a point’ by proposing to ban those groups from gun stores?”
The Cult of the Body, do note, is a realm of secular leftists (a redundancy, I know). People need something to give their lives meaning, to take the place of authentic faith, and those perceiving only the material world will focus on the material — and our body is the most precious material thing we have.
Then there’s a related factor, as I also wrote in 2012:
[The Cult of the Body is] a result of subordinating spiritual health to physical health. A person of faith may believe that he’s enjoined to treat the temple of the soul well, but he will never elevate that imperative over that of caring for the soul itself. He realizes that this life, relative to eternity, is as a drop of water in an ocean — and it is that ocean voyage for which he is mainly preparing. Thus, recognizing the reality of God’s law (morality), he understands that of primary importance is avoiding what has traditionally been labeled sin.
But what about when you don’t believe in an afterlife? This temporal life is then all you see.
And then staying in it for as long as possible can become the most important thing to you.
In fact, it can become obsession.
This certainly helps explain CNN’s Chris Cuomo, who appears very proud of his workout routine, toned body and bulging biceps, as the video below evidences.
Clearly, many leftists spend a lot of time in the gym. This may explain why, when rationalizing away reality, they’re so adept at mental gymnastics.
Photo: AP Images
