⬅ William Howard Taft: Big as an Infant

At age 9, he suffered a slight skull fracture and a bad cut on the head when the horses drawing the family carriage ran off. 1a For the rest of his life he carried "a deep depression" in his skull 2a. There was speculation this injury damaged Taft's pituitary gland and caused his obesity 3a, but this is unlikely because: (1) Taft was big from birth 1b SEE BELOW and (2) throughout his life, Taft's weight generally paralleled his unhappiness 1c 4a 5a.

When Taft was 7 weeks old, his mother wrote 1b:

He is very large of his age and grows fat every day.... He has such a large waist, that he cannot wear any of the dresses that are made with belts.