AppId is over the quota
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says jokes about his girth are par for the course. But the notion that the extra pounds he carries are a legitimate election issue is absurd, he says.
As the New York Times reports, when Christie bowed out of the 2012 presidential race yesterday, he criticized those who said his weight somehow reflects on his ability to lead a state or country. (He didn’t single out any critics, but the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson last week wrote a column called “Chris Christie’s Big Problem.”)
“The people who pretend to be serious commentators who wrote about this are among the most ignorant I?ve ever heard in my life,” Christie said at the press conference where he announced his decision, according to the NYT. He continued: “To say that, because you?re overweight, you are therefore undisciplined — you know, I don?t think undisciplined people get to achieve great positions in our society, so that kind of stuff is just ignorant.”
The notion of weight as a matter of personal responsibility “has been central to social, legal, and political approaches to obesity,” wrote researchers at Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity and other institutions in Health Affairs last year. “It evokes language of blame, weakness and vice and is a leading basis for inadequate government efforts, given the importance of environmental conditions in explaining high rates of obesity.”
The folks at Rudd and others would like to see more attention paid to those environmental conditions, with a greater focus on community-centered rather than individual actions to combat obesity.
In a statement posted to the Rudd website, Rebecca Puhl, director of research at the center, objected to criticism of Christie, saying “there is no reason to assume that a person can’t be an effective political candidate or leader simply because of his or her body weight.” She continued: “Discounting an individual’s credentials, training, accomplishments or abilities because of body weight is discriminatory. This communicates a harmful and unfair message that a person’s talents and contributions to society have no value if that person is obese.”
Christie doesn’t shirk personal responsibility for his weight — he says that it likely affects his health and readily acknowledges that he eats too much. But he rejects the idea that the topic of weight has any place in the political arena.
Readers, what do you think? Is a candidate’s weight a proxy for his or her self-discipline or other component of leadership?
Photo: Associated Press