Top 10 Unhealthiest U.S. Presidents Ever

When Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President he was 69 years old, which at the time made him the oldest elected president in US history. As such, Reagan brought with him a host of physical maladies. For starters he was nearsighted, a fact that kept him on the sidelines during WWII. He also had poor hearing, something that would lead to him wear hearing aids in both of his ears for much of his time in office. In 1985 he went under the knife to remove cancer from his colon. Tack on a deteriorating memory later diagnosed as Alzheimer’s, and you have one unhealthy president.

Woodrow Wilson was America’s 28th President. He served two terms from 1913 to 1921, but before, during and after that time battled through various health-related issues. He suffered what was to be the first of many strokes in 1896, and it hindered his ability to write for an entire year. In 1906 another stroke left him unable to see out of his left eye, and in 1919 he suffered what was to be the worst stroke to date. It paralyzed his entire left side and forced him for a time into a wheelchair. He died in 1924 after suffering, you guessed it, another stroke.

To say that William Henry Harrison was sickly upon entering office would be a gross understatement. The man would only serve as President for 31 days, dying of pneumonia on April 4th, 1841 at the age of 68. This made him the first US President to die in office and gives him the dubious distinction of having served the shortest term in US Presidential history. While there are others Presidents that suffered from different physical and mental issues that didn’t make our list, we think the fact that Harrison lasted only about a month gives him a slight edge in the unhealthiest Presidents department.

November 22, 1963 will forever live in infamy as the day America lost one of its most beloved Presidents. However, prior to that day, John F. Kennedy was far from healthy. His younger years were peppered with a plethora of physical ailments, from scarlet fever and whooping cough to pneumonia and appendicitis. Things only got worse the older Kennedy became. He was diagnosed with Addison’s disease in 1947 – a disorder whose symptoms includes chronic muscle weakness and nausea – and despite continuous treatment was unable to ride himself of the issue. Add high cholesterol, stomach and colon issues, and a penchant for Cuban cigars and you have one sick President.

America’s 34th President was also one of its unhealthiest. Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered multiple heart attacks during his time in office, which lasted from 1953 to 1961. They may have been a result of his smoking habit; and when we say habit we mean he smoked like a chimney on a cold winter’s evening. Eisenhower managed to kick the addiction, but not before being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in 1956. This would cause him to experience a slew of digestive issues that were only corrected after he underwent surgery later that year. Between 1955 and the year of his death Eisenhower would endure seven heart attacks and see his gallbladder removed. So basically: not healthy.

He may be on Mount Rushmore, but certainly not for his health! As a child Roosevelt suffered from crippling asthma attacks, of which there was no cure. He was quite nearsighted and eventually lost much of his vision. In 1912 he was on the wrong end of an assassin’s bullet and it remaining lodged in his chest for the rest of his life. Then in 1913 while on a trip in South America, Roosevelt got malaria. Coupled with a host of other physical ailments he received on the same trip, Roosevelt barely made it home in one piece. He died a few years later at the age of 60.

America’s seventh President, Andrew Jackson served from 1829 until 1837. During the American Revolution, a teen-aged Jackson was stricken with smallpox after being caught by the British and thrown in prison. Later in life, the infamously duel-crazy Jackson was shot multiple times by opponents - including one bullet to the chest that stayed lodged there till the day he died. As might be expected, he was in constant pain for the rest of his life. Jackson also suffered from both dysentery and malaria, and was addicted to alcohol and tobacco. It also has been suggested that he suffered from lead and mercury poisoning. So yeah…not exactly healthy by modern standards.

Yet another President who died while still in office, Warren G. Harding passed away on August 2nd, 1923, just two years into his term. He’d long suffered from various health issues such as high blood pressure, and was known to regularly indulge in cigars, alcohol, and chewing tobacco. This caused him to develop a number of heart related problems, which ultimately lead to his fatal 1923 heart attack. Harding had also contracted influenza some months before his death, and it is said that he never truly recovered from it.

William Howard Taft is the fattest President to have ever occupied the oval office, weighing in at over 330 pounds. His obesity caused him to suffer from sleep apnea, which lead to him dozing off in meetings, conversations, and occasionally, while eating. He’d later be hit with gout in both of his feet, which causes the feet to swell and become stiff. Despite attempts to reduce his weight, Taft was never able to truly shed the pounds, and at the time of his death he still weighed a considerable 280.

Much like our previous entry, Grover Cleveland struggled with weight problems for much of his life, and was stricken by gout. Much of this was due to his love of food, alcohol, and cigars, the latter of which would cause him to develop carcinoma on the roof of his mouth and which would later require surgery to remove. Cleveland, who served as both the 22nd and 24th President, openly despised exercise and once said, “Bodily movement alone . . . is among the dreary and unsatisfying things of life." Suffice it to say Cleveland was far from a picture of health.