President Obama’s Health and Wellness and His First Physical Exam as President
President Obama just finished his first physical while holding office as President. The results have created some controversy because the President isn’t in the best of health. The President’s LDL Cholesterol is 138, which is borderline high according to the American Heart Association. The national average for LDL Cholesterol is 114.8.
The part that bothered me was that the White House Press Secretary made a joke out of it and President Obama’s eating habits. He stated that it was the White House Chef’s fault and that “you guys think he eats carrots and celery and there is more cheeseburgers, fries and pie then you previously knew.”
President Obama also said, “I just have to say no to desert more often.” Wow! I don’t know about you, but if I had a personal chef serving me twenty four hours a day who is willing to make me whatever I want, I would be eating healthy and certainly not cheeseburgers, fries and pie.
I think the White House has sent the wrong message to the public, saying that it is totally acceptable to eat unhealthy foods, especially if you are busy. President Obama could have turned the situation around with the not so positive results by making it into a call for eating and living right and give encouragement for other Americans.
Instead, they made it into a joke.For those of you who don’t know, President Obama is a smoker, but no one knows just how often he smokes. On June 23, 2009 Obama stated in an interview, “as a former smoker I constantly struggle with it.” He explained that he has tried to quit, but “as a former smoker I constantly struggle with it,” and he also stated that he falls off the wagon but isn’t a constant smoker.
It was released that Obama’s doctor who did the physical also said President Obama has to say no to cigarettes. In response to all of this the White House Press Secretary promised that President Obama will show more “Presidential Restraint.” I feel for President Obama. I think being President is a thankless job, where you are constantly criticized, working harder than any other person in the country and under tremendous pressure.
I am not criticizing Obama as a person, just the way it was handled and the lost opportunity for the message that could have been delivered. I also think our President is a sign of the average American and how the majority of Americans are no longer healthy in the way they eat. This is a major contributor to a lot of the health problems we have today in America.
About the Author
Jonathan Edelheit is Editor-In-Chief of the Corporate Wellness Magazine, the only Corporate Wellness Magazine in the industry focused on Health and Wellness in the workplace. Mr. Edelheit has been involved in US healthcare for almost ten years and ran a national healthcare administrator for almost seven years that administered healthcare plans for insurance companies, employers and governments.
While running the healthcare administrator Mr. Edelheit started to implement the first corporate wellness programs there through many tools such as health risk assessments, tele-medicine, e-health and many more options. Mr. Edelheit has been featured or mentioned in hundreds of media publications and in February 2008 was featured as a visionary in US healthcare by Executive Managed Healthcare Magazine.
Mr. Edelheit also organizes the Corporate Wellness Conference which is the only dedicated national conference on corporate health and wellness in the country and which targets employers, health insurance agents and large consulting firms. Mr. Edelheit is also an attorney. Jonathan Edelheit may be contacted at info@cwm.corporatewellnessmagazine.com
The former POTUS shares his two children, Sasha and Malia, with wife Michelle Obama
Former President Barack Obama revealed the harrowing health scare his daughter Sasha faced as a baby. When Sasha was just three months old, she was diagnosed with meningitis, causing distress for the family. Barack recounted the experience, saying, “I still remember going to the hospital together and they had to give her a spinal tap.”
He praised the doctors and nurses who helped them during that challenging time. Michelle Obama also recalled the ordeal, describing how Sasha’s condition rapidly deteriorated from being happy to inconsolable. They rushed her to the emergency room, where she was diagnosed with meningitis. Michelle emphasized the importance of having access to healthcare and insurance during such emergencies. Fortunately, Sasha made a full recovery, and both she and her sister, Malia, are now leading healthy lives and pursuing their careers.
Michelle and Barack Obama’s daughter’s very difficult health diagnosis revealed
the former President of the United States of America, Barack Obama has endured his fair share of emotional times, but nothing could have prepared him for how he would feel when his daughter Sasha was delivered a heartwrenching health diagnosis as a baby.
The politician and his wife, Michelle, are proud parents to Malia, 25, and Sasha, 22, who are now grown up, happy and healthy.
However, when Sasha was only three months old, Barack and Michelle’s world began to unravel as she was diagnosed with meningitis.
While on the campaign trail in 2012, Barack opened up about the diagnosis and said: “People ask me what was the hardest time in my life — they ask, well what about during the debt ceiling debate and this and that and the other thing.
“Sasha got meningitis when she was three months old. I still remember going to the hospital together and they had to give her a spinal tap.”
The father-of-two added: “The doctors did a terrific job, but, frankly, it was the nurses that were there with us when she had to get a spinal tap, and all sorts of things that were just bringing me to tears.”
The agonizing time will be forever etched on Michelle’s mind too as she explained during an interview with Rev. Al Sharpton.
“I will never forget. It was a day when, you know, one hour she was fine, she was normal, she was happy, doing everything I was used to her doing and the next hour she was crying inconsolably, and that just wasn’t like her. And I did everything.”
She continued: “I tried to do – tried to feed her, tried to rock her, tried to burp her. Finally, I just thought, I need to call my pediatrician.”
After she described Sasha’s symptoms, the medical staff insisted they rush to the emergency room.
“As it turned out, she had meningitis. And they had to do a spinal tap,” said Michelle who admitted that had she not had access to health care things could have had a very different outcome.
“She turned out – obviously, as this story ends, she is fine, she’s healthy, she’s a beautiful young lady, but if we hadn’t had insurance, and access to a pediatrician, and access to a hospital where we didn’t have to worry about the cost of care.
“If we had waited overnight, if we had postponed acting, there’s no telling what the outcome would’ve been.”
Fortunately, Sasha did make a full recovery, which the famous family are grateful for every single day.
She lives in LA with her older sister Malia, where they are both forging forward with their respective careers and making their parents incredibly proud.
Family of Barack Obama
The family of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, is a prominent American family active in law, education, activism and politics. Obama’s immediate family circle was the first family of the United States from 2009 to 2017, and are the first such family of African-American descent.[1] His immediate family includes his wife Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha.
Obama’s wider ancestry is made up of people of Kenyan (Luo), African-American, and Old Stock American (including originally English, Scots-Irish, Welsh, German, and Swiss) ancestry.
Michelle Obama
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American lawyer, university administrator, and writer who served as the First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017.[7] She is Barack Obama’s wife, and was the first African-American first lady. Raised on the South Side of Chicago,[8] Michelle Obama is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School,[9] and spent her early legal career working at the law firm Sidley Austin, where she met her husband.[10] She subsequently worked as the associate dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago[11] and the vice president for Community and External Affairs of the University of Chicago Medical Center.[12] Barack and Michelle married in 1992.[13]
Michelle campaigned for her husband’s presidential bid throughout 2007 and 2008, delivering a keynote address at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.[14] She returned to speak at the 2012 Democratic National Convention,[15] and again during the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where she delivered a speech in support of the Democratic presidential nominee, and fellow first lady, Hillary Clinton.[16]
As first lady, Michelle Obama sought to become a role model for women, an advocate for poverty awareness, education, nutrition, physical activity and healthy eating, and became a fashion icon.[17][18]
Malia Obama and Sasha Obama
Barack and Michelle Obama have two daughters: Malia Ann (/məˈliːə/), born July 4, 1998,[19][20] and Natasha Marian (known as Sasha /ˈsɑːʃə/), born June 10, 2001.[21] They were both delivered at University of Chicago Medical Center by their parents’ friend and physician Anita Blanchard.[22] Sasha was the youngest child to reside in the White House since John F. Kennedy Jr. arrived as an infant in 1961.[23] In 2014, Malia and Sasha were named two of “The 25 Most Influential Teens of 2014” by Time magazine.[24]
From left to right: Malia, Michelle, and Sasha on stage at the 2008 Democratic National Convention
Before his inauguration, President Obama published an open letter to his daughters in Parade magazine, describing what he wants for them and every child in America: “to grow up in a world with no limits on your dreams and no achievements beyond your reach, and to grow into compassionate, committed women who will help build that world”.[25]
While living in Chicago, the Obamas kept busy schedules, as the Associated Press reported: “soccer, dance and drama for Malia, gymnastics and tap for Sasha, piano and tennis for both”.[26][27] In July 2008, the family gave an interview to the television series Access Hollywood. Obama later said they regretted allowing the children to be included.[28] Malia and Sasha both graduated from the private Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., the same school that Chelsea Clinton, Tricia Nixon Cox, Archibald Roosevelt and the grandchildren of Joe Biden (when he was Vice President) attended.[29] The Obama girls began classes there on January 5, 2009;[30] Malia graduated in 2016. Before the family moved to Washington in 2009, both girls attended the private University of Chicago Laboratory School.[31]
In his victory speech on the night of his election, President Obama repeated his promise to Sasha and Malia to get a puppy to take with them to the White House.[32] The selection was slow because Malia is allergic to animal dander;[33] the president subsequently said that the choice had been narrowed down to either a labradoodle or a Portuguese Water Dog, and that they hoped to find a shelter animal.[34] On April 12, 2009, it was reported that the Obamas had adopted a six-month-old Portuguese Water Dog given to them as a gift by Senator Ted Kennedy;[35] Malia and Sasha named the dog Bo.[35] The White House referred to Bo as the First Dog.[36] In 2013, the family adopted a second Portuguese Water Dog named Sunny.[37]
As a high school student, Malia Obama spent a portion of the summer in 2014 and 2015 working in television studios in New York and Los Angeles.[38] She spent the summer of 2016 working as an intern in the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, Spain.[39]
During the week June 26, 2016, to July 3, 2016, Michelle, Sasha, Malia, and Michelle’s mother Marian Robinson went to Liberia to promote the Let Girls Learn Peace initiative, for which the United States has provided $27 million in aid.[40] They met with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the former president of Liberia and the first elected female head of state in Africa.[40] Then they went to Morocco, where they had a panel with Freida Pinto and Meryl Streep moderated by CNN’s Isha Sesay in Marrakesh and delivered a substantive amount of money to aid 62 million girls lacking access to formal education. They proceeded to Spain where Michelle delivered a message about the initiative.[40]
In August 2016, Sasha began working at Nancy’s, a seafood restaurant in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.[41][42] In the fall of 2016, Malia went on an 83-day trip to Bolivia and Peru.[43] In February 2017, Malia started an internship for Harvey Weinstein at The Weinstein Company film studio in New York City.[44] In August 2017, Malia started attending Harvard University.[45] Sasha graduated from Sidwell Friends in 2019 and began attending the University of Michigan in the fall.[46][47] Sasha transferred to the University of Southern California and graduated in 2023.[48]
Malia graduated from Harvard in 2021 and began working as a writer on the Amazon Prime Video television series Swarm.[49] In spring 2023, Donald Glover confirmed that Malia was working on a short film for his production company;[50] The Heart, starring Tunde Adebimpe, was announced as part of the Short Cuts program at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.[51]