Got to be thin if you want to get in the White House

Out of America: Got to be thin if you want to get in
Hefty US voters expect their politicians to be slim if they're running for the White House
By Rupert Cornwell
Independent UK
Published: 25 March 2007

'Let me have men about me that are fat; ... Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look." Shakespeare's Julius Caesar would feel distinctly uneasy were he to survey the current US presidential field - and not just the preternaturally svelte Barack Obama. Overweight America may continue to wolf down junk food with a gusto matched only by the desperation with which it searches for magical weight-loss formulas. But in politics, slimness is busting out all over.

Take Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who is making a long-shot bid for the Republican nomination. Mr Huckabee describes himself as a recovering foodaholic, who once tipped the scales at 300lb and ate so much he became diabetic. Over the past couple of years, he has lost 120lb. Not surprisingly, health care and fitness are centre-pieces of his campaign.

Setting the example on the Democratic side is Bill Richardson, the current Governor of New Mexico. The plump and engaging Gov Richardson has already shed 30lb and aims to lose 10lb more, though that will be a tall order. I can testify from personal experience that when it comes to over-consumption of junk food and late-night pizzas, nothing beats a US presidential campaign.

Even so, such heroic endeavours make sense. Caesar was justifiably alarmed at the lean and treacherous Cassius - "he thinks too much; such men are dangerous." But when it comes to winning the White House, plump usually does not make perfect. The obvious exception was Bill Clinton (by coincidence or otherwise, another ex-governor of Arkansas), who spent eight years in office fighting a mostly losing battle against the Big Mac. Generally though, Americans like their leaders trim.

Right now, this country is going through yet another bout of food angst. A barrage of new statistics showing how the US trails most other advanced countries in many public health indicators, despite the astronomic sums it spends on health care, may have triggered the latest soul-searching. Why is it, Americans ask, that a third of us are clinically obese compared with, for example, only 3 per cent in Japan?

A book I came across the other day provides a fascinating new take on the problem. It starts with the obvious, that we are indeed members of a species that for most of its existence has had to worry about starvation, for which the first requirement of evolution was survival. We are still hardwired to grab food whenever we can. Then, of course, there are America's giant food portions, which play to this biological programming: the more there is, the more you grab.

I would contend further that members of my generation, old enough to remember post-war rationing, are especially vulnerable. To this day I feel guilty if I do not clean my plate. I have never entered into the doggy bag culture, thus subjecting myself more than necessary to that most depressing question in the language - the "Still working on it, honey?" sympathetic waitresses are apt to utter as I grapple with some enormous plateful.

But in his book Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, Brian Wansink, a nutritional specialist at Cornell University, digs deeper. His thesis is that for much of the time, we don't realise what we are doing, and this absent-mindedness leads to our downfall. Our weaknesses, naturally, are exploited by devious marketers, tarting up food with wholesome labels, and carefully concealing just how many calories we consume. If we're told something is low fat, low this or low that, we'll eat more of it. His real insight, however, is that while you can mindlessly overeat, you can equally mindlessly undereat. The key is context. If you can create an environment where you are not confronted at every turn by food, or at least only confronted by healthy food, then you will consume fewer calories. You might even start to lose weight.

None of this, of course, means that food, weight, obesity and public health will be an issue in 2008, however inspiring the example of Messrs Huckabee and Richardson. And then there is the Al Gore factor. "Let me have men about me that are fat; sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights," urged Caesar. The Gore who testified about global warming on Capitol Hill last week fitted the bill perfectly, far plumper than in his vice-presidential days, and he probably sleeps a lot better too.

The Oscar-winning eco-warrior insists he has no plans to run, but shrewd observers say his waistline is a better indicator of his intentions. If Gore starts to shed pounds, they argue, he's in. The funny thing is, today's Gore is a lot more appealing than the old one. He could be one fat candidate Americans truly warm to.

The US Presidential campaign was on hold this weekend - tactics, policy arguments and routine insults brought to a halt by that much rarer political phenomenon: genuine, and universally felt, human tragedy.

The news announced on Thursday by John Edwards, one of the three leading contenders for the Democratic nomination in 2008, and his wife, Elizabeth, was of the kind that anyone dreads. After more than two years in remission, Elizabeth's breast cancer, diagnosed in 2004, had returned in an incurable, if treatable, form.

Making that news even worse has been the great affection commanded by Mrs Edwards. A capable lawyer, she is her husband's closest adviser, constantly at his side, and sometimes his surrogate. She is warm, open, optimistic - even though the couple have already had to face the death of their eldest son, Wade, killed in a car accident in 1996, at 16.

On Thursday she was true to form: upbeat, insisting her husband did not abandon his White House bid. "We're going to always look for the silver lining," she said.

But events may force him to drop out, or suspend activity.The odds are against Mrs Edwards surviving more than five or 10 years - will voters choose a man who as President might have to cope with a dying wife?

Polls give Mr Edwards 15 per cent of the Democratic vote. If he does back out, the battle between his rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to win over his followers will be intense.