It’s A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood: A Look Back At Mr. Rogers

He Weighed Exactly 143 Pounds For 30 Years And The Reason Is Beautiful

As one of the most beloved characters on TV, Mr. Rogers spent hours out of every day personally responding to fan mail and attending gatherings. Even with everything going on in his life he managed to maintain an exact weight of 143 pounds every day for 30 years. Writer Tom Junod later explain that Mr. Rogers grew up as a chubby child and decided to watch his weight.

Rogers explains to Junod that he found comfort in the number 143 because “the number 143 means ‘I love you.’ It takes one letter to say ‘I’ and four letters to say ‘love’ and three letters to say ‘you.’ One hundred and forty-three.”