Donald Trump: How is a man addicted to Big Macs and Diet Coke fighting fit at 78?

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Donald Trump: How is a man addicted to Big Macs and Diet Coke fighting fit at 78?

In 2015, fledgling presidential candidate Donald Trump dictated a letter for his doctor to sign testifying that, if successful, he would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency”.

Ever since, his opponents have scoffed at his bare-faced cheek (the letter also declared that his “physical strength and stamina are extraordinary”) while continuing to warn darkly that a man of his age with his diet of fast food and Diet Coke, and his exercise regimen (or lack thereof) cannot possibly be healthy.

His critics’ insistence that the new US President is just one Big Mac away from a heart attack may contain a huge dollop of wishful thinking, but it has nonetheless been trotted out incessantly for years.

What’s going on under those strategically over-sized suits cannot be good, they chorus – no matter what helpful doctors say.

Even his wife is reportedly worried.

Last November, it was claimed Melania and Robert F Kennedy Jr, his nominee for health secretary, were “ganging up” on Trump to eat more healthily – swapping fast food for lean protein, salads and vegetables.

Two former aides have testified that a typical Trump McDonald’s order was a gut-busting two Big Macs, two Filet-OFish and a chocolate milkshake. In all, 2,430 calories.

And yet if there’s one area where Trump continues to defy the naysayers, it’s his health and, perhaps more importantly for the “leader of the free world”, his stamina.

Granted, Trump has benefited from being compared to Joe Biden, now 82, whose declining mental and physical faculties were shockingly covered up for years.

Yet during last year’s election campaign Trump felt sufficiently confident in his own abilities that, writing on X in October, he challenged Kamala Harris – 18 years his junior – to take a test on “cognitive stamina and agility” after his supporters claimed she had been “slow and lethargic in answering even the easiest of questions”.

On Monday, aged 78 and 220 days, he became the oldest person ever inaugurated as president, beating Biden, who was five months younger when he took the oath four years ago.

One of his first acts was to reinstall a button on his desk in the Oval Office that automatically requests a glass of Diet Coke.

Camera IconUS President Donald Trump regularly eats junk food. Credit: Unknown/

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He didn’t exactly perform backflips at his swearing-in but nor did he shuffle on with his wife and aides watching like hawks for any sign he was about to fall over – as became the case with Biden.

And while Uncle Joe couldn’t be trusted even to ask the time if the question wasn’t written out for him on a teleprompter, Trump still prefers to speak off the cuff: of the two speeches he gave at the Capitol – one from a script and one, later, without one – there was little to choose between them in terms of his fluency and articulacy.

And it was a marathon day for him. He attended a morning church service, tea at the White House with Biden, spoke for half an hour at his swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol, gave an even longer post-inaugural address, attended a congressional lunch, reviewed the troops, gave another speech at his indoor presidential parade and signed scores of executive orders in the Oval Office.

He then attended three inaugural ****** where his duties included giving another ten-minute speech, talking to troops in South Korea on a video feed, cutting a cake with a sabre and dancing (three times) with Melania.

And he still had enough energy to repeatedly show off his signature fist-pump dance to YMCA by the Village People (who had performed live at the second ball he attended).

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Camera IconDonald Trump dances as the Village People perform at a MAGA victory rally. Credit: JIM WATSON/AFP

Even his fiercest critic cannot deny that’s not bad for a 78-year-old (and one, remember, who after being shot in the ear by an assassin last July was back on his feet in seconds, punching the air in defiance.)

Corey Lewandowski, who managed Trump’s 2016 campaign, recalled how he “would go and work 14 or 16 or 18 hours a day and not eat because he was so focused like a professional athlete would be”.

What is his secret?

Trump himself certainly has a few ideas although they aren’t necessarily shared by the experts.

For a start, Trump – whose older brother, Fred, died from alcoholism – says he has never drunk alcohol, smoked cigarettes or used drugs. Less healthily, he only sleeps about four or five hours a night and considers golf his “primary form of exercise”.

Even then, he doesn’t walk between holes but uses a golf cart instead.

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Camera IconDonald Trump is a keen golfer. Credit: Mike Stobe/Getty Images

Trump has justified this physical inactivity by promulgating an odd theory – popular among Victorians but hardly so today – that the body is like a battery with a finite amount of energy. By exercising, you are depleting that battery and actually harming yourself.

What else may be relevant?

Scientists say that genes play a part in health and life expectancy.

Trump’s property developer father, Fred, lived to 93, while his mother, Mary Anne, the poverty-hardened daughter of a crofter on Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, lived to 88.

And as the son of a rich man, Trump will doubtless have benefited from the best medical treatment his entire life.

Despite his claims to the contrary, critics have recently said there’s evidence that Trump’s mental and physical faculties are declining.

The New York Times – one of his most enthusiastic critics – in October analysed his speeches and concluded he had lately appeared “confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality”.

But others could point out that nothing much has changed there, Trump has always made gaffes, for instance in 2019 claiming that during the 1770s American War of Independence, the rebels “took over the airports” from the British.

Opponents have also pointed to Trump’s reluctance to publish his medical records. Presidential candidates in the US are not obliged to release health information about themselves and, despite polls showing many voters have misgivings about Trump’s advancing age, he has been even more cagey than Biden about releasing his medical records.

In 2018, while President, his White House doctor released a letter on his health that experts said showed he was borderline obese and had heart disease.

Over the next two years, doctors revealed that his weight had risen to just under 17.5 stone, making him officially obese, but no further details have been released since he left office.

As for his brain, Trump has said he twice “aced” cognitive tests, but he has not released them and has not said if he has taken one since 2018.

Trump has revealed his father, Fred, was “addled with Alzheimer’s” and some experts have said he could have an elevated genetic risk of dementia.

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Camera IconDonald Trump arrives for his inauguration. Credit: MELINA MARA/AFP

The speculation will inevitably continue and every new slip – physical or verbal – be brandished as proof.

Trump himself admitted in a 2022 interview that his health might stop him running again for president.

“You always have to talk about health. You look like you’re in good health, but tomorrow, you get a letter from a doctor saying come see me again,” he told the Washington Post.

“That’s not good when they use the word ‘again’,” he said.

And yet here he is back in the White House, and – for good or ill – very much like his old self.

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