Report: Chris Christie Dropped 85 Pounds

Politico says its weight-loss experts estimate Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has lost 85 pounds since bariatric surgery last year.

After a constituent remarked about the governor’s noticeably slimmed-down physique at a town hall meeting last week, POLITICO asked two experts to estimate the governor’s weight loss by comparing several pictures of him from 2011 with recent photos.

“I think he is making progress, absolutely, for what I would expect this at this point of the process,” said Dr. Jessica Barfield, a doctor of internal medicine specializing in nutrition and weight management at Loyal Medicine’s Center for Metabolic Surgery and Bariatric Care in Melrose, Ill.

 Both Barfield and Dr. David L. Katz, a director at the Prevention Research Center at Yale University’s School of Medicine, estimated that, based on the photos, in 2011 Christie had a body mass index (BMI) of about 45, which would put his weight at about 322 pounds. That’s considered extreme obesity. In the photos taken in 2014, Christie appears to have dropped to a BMI of 33, or roughly 236 pounds, the doctors said.

Christie has acknowledged the surgery, but not said how much weight he has lost.