He’s been diagnosed with swollen ankles, enjoys feasting on McDonald’s and Diet Coke, and will soon be the oldest president to occupy the White House.
But at the age of 79 and weighing 224 pounds, Donald Trump is on a health tear.
The president is determined to make fitness and nutrition central to his agenda, announcing plans on Thursday to revive the Presidential Fitness Test, which creates school-based fitness challenges and awards for “excellence in fitness.”
“It’s going to be a very big thing,” Trump said in White House as he made the announcement alongside former wrestler Triple H, Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, Swedish professional golfer Annika Sorenstam.
“This was a wonderful tradition and we’re bringing it back.”
The revised Presidential Fitness Test comes on the heels of the president launching a health tracking app on Wednesday night, allowing Americans to share personal health data and medical records across health systems.
The test will formally re-establish the program introduced by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, which rewarded students who excelled in tests such as the 50-yard dash, shuttle runs and pull-ups.
Students with the highest fitness scores were then eligible to receive a Presidential Physical Fitness Award.
The program was abandoned in 2012 by the Obama administration, which replaced it with another assessment focusing more on individual health than athletic prowess.
But Trump’s own fitness has also come under the spotlight lately, with the White House revealing earlier this month that he had been diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency.
CVI is a “benign and common” condition that occurs when veins can’t manage blood flow well and making it harder for the blood to return to the heart.
The diagnosis was revealed after ongoing questions about Trump’s suddenly chunky ankles, as well as visible bruising on his hand. The latter, according to the White House, was due to the president’s serial handshaking.
But while CVI isn’t life-threatening, doctors say it gets riskier with age and a poor diet.
“If he does not manage his weight and he does not get into a real exercise program, it will continue to get worse,” said Sanjiv Lakhanpal, the founder and CEO of the Center for Vein Restoration, told the Daily Beast.
Trump, however, insists he is fit as a fiddle. At his last physical examination in April, his doctor recorded his weight at 224 pounds, his height at 75 inches, a resting heart rate of 62 beats per minute, with “normal” eyesight, lungs and thyroids.
His hearing showed “no significant abnormalities with the exception of scarring on his right ear from a gunshot wound”-a reference to the attempted assassination against him in Pennsylvania last year.
Trump announced the revised Presidential Fitness Test in the Oval Office on Thursday, as he signed an executive order tasking the Presidential Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition to develop school-based programs that reward achievements in physical education.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has been a vocal advocate for tackling childhood obesity, will be responsible for administering the program.
The night before, fresh from a whirlwind trip to Scotland, Trump and Kennedy joined celebrity doctor turned Medicare administrator Mehmet Oz, better known as “Dr Oz”, to announce a health tracking program.
However, during the event, in somewhat amusing scenes, the president looked as though he was on the verge of falling asleep as Oz addressed the crowd.
Earlier, as he talked about people getting more access to their health records, Trump joked: “I don’t want to see mine... If I’ve got a problem, I don’t want to know.”
