Taft handled weighty issues
WASHINGTON — Way before Weight Watchers or “The Biggest Loser,” a president known for his girth was helping to usher in a modern approach to treating obesity.
Got a nagging doctor? The 27th president, William H. Taft did, way back in the early 1900s. A medical historian has analyzed letters between the two, complete with food diaries and daily weigh-ins surely recognizable to many of today’s dieters.
Have a problem with yo-yo dieting and weight gain? Yep, Taft did, too.
Monday’s report offers a rare peek at the history of obesity, through the experiences of one of the first American public figures to struggle openly with weight — and how a doctor aided in an era when physician treatment of obesity was just emerging.
Taft’s “rise to political power coincided with this change in medical thinking, which led to the first celebrity weight loss patient,” said Deborah Levine, an assistant professor at Rhode Island’s Providence College. Her report, part of research for a book about the course of obesity in the U.S., appears in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
Sports fans might recognize Taft as the latest addition to the Washington Nationals’ racing presidents. History buffs know he’s the only president-turned-Supreme Court chief justice. But he’s also remembered as the president whose weight, at times well over 300 pounds, made headlines.
Taft hired British dieting expert Nathaniel Yorke-Davies in 1905, four years before becoming president. Then 314 pounds, Taft was worried about heartburn and other health problems — he was famously fatigued, presumably from obesity-caused sleep apnea — and possibly also about his career, Levine wrote.
The candid exchanges between doctor and patient highlight the ups and down of weight loss.
“I feel in excellent condition. I used to suffer from acidity of stomach, and I suppose that was due to overloading it,” Taft wrote at one point.
Dusting off those archives is important to remind people that obesity isn’t some scary new 21st-century problem, said Dr. Scott Kahan of George Washington University and the STOP Obesity Alliance.
Yes, obesity rates have surged over the past few decades. But waistlines actually began to expand in the mid-19th century, as food became easier to cultivate and distribute, Kahan said. Diet books and pamphlets began flourishing. Where women’s corsets offered some tightening, Levine says obesity belts were developed for men. Even then it was clear there was no quick fix.
