In an ideal world, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would have had to address publicly his body size in one context and one context only: Does it present or complicate any health issues that would reduce his ability to handle the stresses of the presidency? Though obesity's medical characteristics can be treated, the cluster of symptoms put him at a much higher risk for a cardiac event or a stroke; it also doesn't help the body process extraordinary stresses well. He's acknowledged that he was living on borrowed time. His weight was an issue, and he owned it.

Unfortunately, aside from his personal life, the real other reason why Christie had to address his weight problem is because Americans would undoubtedly have seen it as a "weight problem," a marker of something else, in much broader terms.

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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.