Posted on: Sunday, July 7, 2002

Health advocates see Bush as poster boy

By Peter Johnson
USA Today

As commander in chief of a nation of rapidly expanding waistlines, President Bush got plenty of media attention when he kicked off his "Healthier U.S." program to promote exercise, eating right and regular checkups.

Then the 55-year-old Bush proved just how fit he is by running three miles in a White House-sponsored race in about 20 minutes — a pace that would suit most teenage runners just fine.

Not everybody, of course, was buying Bush's fitness drive.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd suggested that Bush chill on the exercise and get to work on some nagging problems.

"Why does the leader of the free world, a man with limitless opportunities for stimulation, seem to get really jazzed only when he can run his 6:45 miles?" she asked. "What this president desperately needs is a few more geeky, scholarly analysts with thick glasses and shameful physiques, poring over memos and intelligence feeds at the CIA, FBI and NSA. Toned bodies are well and good. But how about some toned minds?"

Try telling that to Dave Zinczenko and Sid Evans who are, respectively, the editors of Rodale's Men's Health and Wenner Media's Men's Journal.

They say Bush may be the best poster boy to promote their agendas — health and fitness — since President Theodore Roosevelt.

"It's as though Bush has become an honorary member of our circulation department," Zinczenko says. "He has tapped into something critical and important — the health of America."

Evans, 33, says that one of the biggest challenges male readers in their 30s face is making time in their busy lives to exercise.

Evans, who attended a briefing with 11 other magazine editors at the White House recently, says Bush "got kind of indignant" when asked how he finds time to work out.

"He said, 'How do you have time to take care of your family?' He looks at exercise with the same kind of seriousness."