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Measuring weight in sports is important for determining body composition and for monitoring changes with diet and exercise. In sports, high body weight is associated in sports such as weightlifting, and low body weight with jockeys. Here we discuss the extremes of weight, the lightest and heaviest humans, though the people mentioned below would struggle in any sporting situation, and are usually not very healthy.
This information about the extremes of body weight may not be complete, and needs to be updated as people grow and also as many of the people with extremes of body mass have medical issues and may not live for long periods.
World's Heaviest Man and Woman
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the heaviest person ever was American Jon Brower Minnoch (born 1941), who had suffered from obesity since childhood. As an adult he was 185 cm (6 ft 1 in) tall. Here are some of his weight measurements:
- 1963: 178 kg (392 lb or 28 st)
- 1966: 317 kg (700 lb or 50 st)
- 1976: 442 kg (975 lb or 69 st 9 lb)
- 1978: 635 kg (1,400 lb or 100 st) - admitted to hospital, weight estimated, a great deal of which was water accumulation due to his congestive heart failure.
- 1980: 216 kg (476 lb or 34 st) - after nearly 2 years on a diet of 1,200 calories per day, this was his hospital discharged weight.
- 1983: 362 kg (798 lb or 57 st), his weight was at least this when he died on 10 Sept. 1983.
The heaviest woman ever is believed to be US woman Carol Yager who reached a peak weight of 727 kg (1,603 lb; 114 st 7 lb). This peak weight is not confirmed. She was born in 1960, and her adult height was 1.70 m (5 ft 7 in). Her weight when she died of kidney failure aged 34 was 545 kg (1,202 lb; 85 st 12 lb).
World's Heaviest Children
Here are the record weights of the heaviest children (male or female) at different ages. Only reported weights are included. I collated this data during 2012, there may be more recent results to be added, and the data is not necessarily complete.
| 0 | 10.8 | 23 lb 12 oz | Martin Bates | 1879 | The world's heaviest baby was born to Anna Bates (née Swan) at her home in Seville, Ohio, USA on 19 January 1879. The baby was 76 cm (30 in) in length and died 11 hours after birth. The mother Anna Bates was herself was an unusual woman at 7ft 5in tall. The largest baby to ever survive was a boy weighing 10.2 kg (22 lb 8 oz) who was born to Carmelina Fedele at Aversa, Italy in September 1955. |
| 6 mths | 13.6 | 30 | Robert Wadlow | 1918 | Wadlow went on to become the world's tallest man ever. Details published by Daughaday. |
| 11 mths | 34.9 | 77 | John Craig | 1856 | Male, from Guinness Book of Records 2000. John Hanson Craig (1856 - 1894) of Kentucky, USA. |
| 1.1 | 54.8 | 121 | James Weir | 1820 | Male, from Guinness Book of Records 1986 |
| 2 | 93.4 | 206 | John Craig | 1858 | Male, from Guinness Book of Records 2000. John Hanson Craig (1856 - 1894) of Kentucky, USA |
| 3 | 100.7 | 222 | Jessica Gaude | 2003 | Female from Knoxville, Tennessee, details from newspaper stories published online |
| 4 | 55.8 | 123 | Dzhambik Khatokhov | 2004 | Male, known as Jambik, from Nalchik in Russia. At birth he weighed 6lb 6oz. from //www.worldrecordsacademy.org |
| 5 | 104 | 230 | Jessica Gaude | 2003 | Female from Knoxville, Tennessee, details from newspaper stories published online |
| 6 | 98.4 | 217 | Dzhambik Khatokhov | 2006 | Male, details from //www.worldrecordsacademy.org |
| 7 | 222 | 489 | Jessica Gaude | 2007 | Female from Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Apparently at this time she was eating 10,000 calories each day in Coca-Colas, 15 hamburgers with fries and several kilograms of chocolate. Details are from newspaper stories published online. She dieted and lost much of this weight. |
| 8 | 133 | 293 | Dzhambik Khatokhov | 2008 | Male from Russia. He's 150 cm (5 ft) tall. details from //www.worldrecordsacademy.org |
| 9 | 154 | 340 | Therese Parentean | 1936 | Female, from Guinness Book of Records1986 |
| 10 | 171 | 380 | Robert Hughes | 1936 | Male, from Guinness Book of Records 2000 |
| 11 | ? | ||||
| 12 | 181.4 | 400 | John Craig | 1868 | Male, from Guinness Book of Records 2000. John Hanson Craig (1856 - 1894) of Kentucky, USA |
| 13 | 247.1 | 545 | Robert Hughes | 1939 | Male, from Guinness Book of Records 2000 |
| 14 | 149.6 | 330 | ? | 1990 | Male, from NHANES III |
| 15 | 158.4 | 349 | Walter Hudson | 1965 | Male, from Guinness Book of Records 2000 |
| 16 | 169.2 | 373 | ? | 1990 | Male, from NHANES III |
| 17 | ? | ||||
| 18 | 313.6 | 691 | Robert Hughes | 1944 | Male, from Guinness Book of Records 2000 |
The original table data was taken from: Kinanthreport, published by ISAK in 2010. The data has been elaborated and added to using information from various sources online.
World's Lightest People
The lightest baby born (and survived): there are many babies born prematurely at very low weight, and many of these babies are unlikely to survive. The lightest baby to have survived was Amillia Taylor, who weighed just 10oz (284 grams), and was 9.5in (24cm) in length. She was was born at just 21 weeks and six days gestation on 24th Oct 2006 in Miami, Florida, to parents Sonja and William Taylor.
The lightest adult of all time is believed to be the Mexican woman Lucia Zarate who weighed only 4.7 pounds (2.13 kg) at the age of 17 (and was 21.5 inches tall). She had put on weight, and was up to 13 lb. (5.9 kg) by her 20th birthday. She was born in 1864, and was the first person identified with Majewski Osteodysplastic Primordial Dwarfism Type II. She apparently achieved her full growth by the age of one year. She died at age 26.
Related References
- D Zimmerman, W F Young Jr, M J Ebersold, B W Scheithauer, K Kovacs, E Horvath, M D Whitaker, N L Eberhardt, T R Downs and L A Frohman, Congenital gigantism due to growth hormone-releasing hormone excess and pituitary hyperplasia with adenomatous transformation. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism January 1, 1993 vol. 76 no. 1 216-222
The world as we have it today is filled with billions of people with various heights, cultures, weights, beliefs, occupations, diets, hobbies and many more peculiar features. With birth and death rates constantly increasing and reducing numbers, we have new varieties everyday.
Science already proves that most of these bodily features are influenced by genetics. Since these genes are more probable than certain, we have very exceptional genes like very dense weights, giant-like heights and so many others in certain persons.
Our concern here is the heaviest people ever lived. Sounds intriguing right? Read on to learn more!
1. Jon Minnoc
Jon Brower Minnoch was an American man who, at his greatest weight of 1,400 lb, was the heaviest person ever being documented. Minnoch weighed 294 pounds at the age of 12 and stood 5 feet 7 inches (170 cm) tall. By the age of 22, he was 6 feet 1 inch (185 cm) tall and weighed 500 pounds.
Minnoch’s weight continuously increased until his hospitalization in March 1978, at the age of 36, for heart and respiratory failure. Minnoch was diagnosed with enormous global edema, a disorder in which the body collects an abnormally large amount of extracellular fluid.
Endocrinologist Robert Schwartz calculated that he must have weighed more than 1,400 lbs (635 kg) at the time of his hospitalization, and that most of his entire body mass was retained fluid.
2. Khalid Bin Mohsen
Khalid bin Mohsen is a Saudi Arabian man who was discovered in August 2013 to be the heaviest living person and the second-heaviest person in recorded history.
Khalid weighed 1,340 lbs (610 kg), just behind Jon Brower Minnoch. In addition, he had the highest BMI ever recorded at 204. He shed 710 pounds (320 kilograms) in six months as a result of medical therapy, which was more than half of his body weight at the time.
3. Manuel Uribe Garza
Manuel Uribe Garza was a Mexican man who suffered from morbid obesity to one of the most extreme levels ever reported in recorded history. He shed 510 lbs (230 kg), or more than one-third of his total weight, after reaching a high weight of nearly 1,300 lbs (600 kg) and being unable to leave his bed since 2002.
By February 2008, this had been accomplished with the assistance of physicians and nutritionists. However, he died on May 26, 2014, in his birthplace, weighing 869 pounds (394 kg).
He was also featured in The World’s Heaviest Man, a 2007 television documentary about his bedridden existence and efforts to lose weight.
4. Carol Yager
Carol Ann Yager was the heaviest lady ever documented and one of the most seriously obese persons in history. Yager shed the greatest weight without surgery in the shortest amount of time: 521 lb (236 kg) in three months.
Yager weighed around 1,200 lbs (540 kg) and was 5 feet 7 inches (1.7 m) tall when she died in 1994 at the age of 34. She was, nevertheless, able to fit through her custom-built 48-inch (121.9-cm) wide front door just before her death. According to published sources, she weighed around 1,603 lbs at the time of her highest weight (727 kg).
5. Walter Hudson
Walter Hudson held the Guinness World Record for having the world’s widest waist. When he was at his highest weight of 1,197 pounds (543 kg) in 1987, it reached 119 inches (302 cm).
Hudson described his typical daily diet as two boxes of sausages, one pound (0.45 kg) of bacon, twelve eggs, and a loaf of bread for breakfast, four hamburgers, four double cheeseburgers, and five large portions of fries for lunch, and three large ham steaks or two chickens, four baked potatoes, four sweet potatoes, four heads of broccoli, and the majority of a large cake for dinner. He also ate extra snacks and drank 237 oz / 1.9 gallon / 7 liters of soda every day.
6. Michael Hebranko
Michael John Hebranko was an American man who suffered from morbid obesity and was one of the world’s largest men. Michael Hebranko Sr. and Jeanette Pica raised Hebranko in Brooklyn. His paternal grandpa was an immigrant from Ukraine.
With the guidance of nutrition and fitness instructor Richard Simmons, he decreased his weight from 906 lbs (411 kg) to 200 lbs (90 kg) and waist size from 290 cm (110 in) to 91 cm (36 in) in 19 months after a stint at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City. In 1990, this was documented in the Guinness Book of World Records as the greatest reported weight reduction. Hebranko was at his peak weight of 1,100 lbs (499 kg) in June 1999.
7. Patrick Deuel
Patrick Darren Deuel was an American who was noted for being one of the world’s heaviest persons. In Channel Four’s BodyShock series, he was the subject of the documentary “Half Ton Man.” Rosalie Bradford provided advice in the documentary after accomplishing a 769-pound weight reduction record (349 kg).
Deuel had not left his residence in Valentine for five years at one time. At his peak, he stood 170 cm (5 ft 7 in) tall and weighed 1,072 pounds (486 kg). He was so big that a hole had to be made in his bedroom wall to get him out. Deuel lost more than a quarter of a ton after undergoing gastric bypass surgery following his hospitalization.