I admit it. I have a fascination not just with how to increase height, but height in general. I enjoy reading articles that talk about giants, dwarfs, extreme human bodies, and people with deformity and disfigurement, often through some birth defect or genetic mutation. For me, I find that as I see more examples of how varied the human body can be, I become more tolerant and accepting of other people, no matter what shape and size they come in.

Plus, it is something interesting to talk about when you meet someone and feel like you run out of stuff to talk about. For example, you meet your new girlfriend’s parents and the inevitable awkward silence appears after some great light banter and humor. What do you? I try to make a note of the parent’s hair color, or eye color, and say an interesting fact about genetics and how they are unique or special.

With guys, I always give the compliment that they are a lot taller than I imagine or thought. With women, I try to compliment them on how young they look. I know, I am trying to butter them up so they will stop hating me for dating their daughter.

So my next “fun fact of the day” starts with a question, “Who was the biggest person to ever exist?” Now, that is a rather hard question to answer. When people are talking about “big” they are using the measurement unit of “size”. but size and big are more qualitative words which can not be measured. When people talk about size, they can either be talking about weight or height, the two main anthropomorphic ways humans are mainly measured.

With height, I think I have that covered quite well. I have stated in many of the previous posts who were the tallest documented people in history are.

With weight, that is also quite easy to pinpoint. We focus on the subject of word record setters in the weight department on this post, just for fun. From just a quick search on google typing in “heaviest man in history” or “fattest man ever” you get the mention of two main contenders.

The first is John Brower Minnoch which you can find the Wikipedia article about him HERE. His peak weight was about 1400 lbs (634 kg)!! He also stood at a respectable 6′ 1″ which puts his BMI at a heartache awaiting to happen number of 186 kg/ m^2. He was born in 19441 and lived to be 42 to 1983. His massive weight was attributed parted to massive generalized edema, a condition where the body accumulates excess extracellular fluid. A doctor found out that 900 of his lbs was from retaining that fluid. After he was hospitalized at the age of 39, he was able to drop his weight down to 476, but eventually regained a lot of the weight back because of this edema.

The other possible heaviest person is a man from Mexico Manuel Uribe (Wiki article located HERE), who reached a peak height of 1320 lb from suffering from massive obesity. He had been bedridden since 2001 until he got national recognition and attention from the Mexican TV stations. He was featured on a documentary entitled The World’s Heaviest Man. Since coming into the public eye, he has been able to get help and treatment for his weight and has reduced his weight dramatically to “just” 440 lb. Since then, Manuel has been able to get remarried and seems very happy.

From Manuel’s own argument, this was the reason he had grown so big

“Life in the U.S. is like that. You just go from your desk to your car. I used to drive my car to and from work, so I didn’t get any exercise”

That is a testament of how unfit the average american has become today. I am imploring the people who come to this website to remember that we as human beings should be striving to grow vertically, not horizontally. It is well known among anthropologist that one of the best indications of the overall health of a country is the measurement of their height. On average, taller countries are healthier countries Given the extreme weight and obesity problems and sedentary lifestyle associated with the USA, it is extremely unlikely there was anyone heavier through history. Most people in history were mostly very skinny from a lack of ability to find food and strenuous work. I can’t imagine someone from ancient egypt, china, or rome being over 1000 lbs, much less over 300 lbs unlike many people I have seen walking around.

Of course it is important to note that anything in excess is not good, whether it be in weight or height since they leave to major inconveniences in life. It might be cool for some people to try to get into the record books by transforming their body but they are putting themselves in critical danger. My final point is, stay healthy, eat well , and exercise.