The ancient Greeks and Romans, who amazed the world with beauty and strength, fought with obesity, ridiculed fat men. The soldiers, for example, could not exceed the established body weight, and the saddles were confiscated from the cavalrymen with a tendency to be overweight. Hippocrates believed that the climate could be the cause of obesity, and Pythagoras, who was a supporter of sexual abstinence, who wanted to get rid of excess weight, recommended having sex.
Nevertheless, at times the fat occupied an important place in society. So, Plato suffered from excess weight, and Horace, who ate a rich breakfast three or four times daily, was very full, like Vitelius. Plutarch wrote that the fearless general Marius was forced to relinquish command of the army, because he was so fat that he could not move at all.
Dionysius - the tyrant of Heraclea - died, strangled by an excess of his own fat. It is said that long before his death, he did not appear in the eyes of his subjects for fear of being ridiculed, and was weighed with leeches every day. Ptolemy II, the grandson of Lagos, one of Alexander the Great's advisers, was so heavy that he walked with two slaves who supported him from the sides. The fat men were William the Conqueror, Henry VIII, Louis XVIII.
Before the 19th century, fat men rarely performed in plays or circuses, showing themselves off, but in almost every region there was a local fat man who was shown to the public for a small fee. People loved it, for them everything thick was always funny. With a few exceptions, such as Mikhail Walker, Robert Earl Hugs, which together would have weighed over a ton, very fat people were rare.
On the other hand, from the beginning of the 19th century until the Second World War, no circus or bazaar could do without a fat man or a fat lady. Some of the more famous ones deserve to be mentioned.
For example, a man from Lincolnshire, weighing over 350 kg, was invited by the English king in 1724. George I sent for him when rumors reached London that a gentleman's horse had died tragically, unable to bear the weight of its master.
Another colossal Englishman, who weighed 440 kg, was named H. Hopkins. He was repeatedly driven around London in a cart pulled by four oxen. One day, Hopkins lost his balance, fell out of the cart and fell onto a sow feeding 18 piglets. The pig and piglets died on the spot. Fifteen men could barely get Hopkins back on the cart.
A certain Mr. Spooner of Warwickshire was recognized at the beginning of the 19th century as the hardest man in England. He weighed 330 kilograms. His employee won a dispute with the visiting French that 360 liters of flour could fit in his master's pants. Once in the village, at the market, Spooner had a fight with a salesman who stuck a 13-centimeter knife into his belly. The wound did not threaten Spooner's life, as his belly was covered with a layer of fat more than 15 cm thick.
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Another Englishman deserves to take part in the fat competition. He was the only person in history whose width exceeded his height. Samuel Sugar weighed 380 kg with a height of 163 cm. He was 173 cm wide at the waist.
John Craig, an American, won the first prize of $ 1,000 in a contest for the most beautiful child in New York when he was young. And at the end of his life, he weighed almost 450 kg.
Only four people in history have weighed over half a ton. The heaviest of them - Renaud le Juracien - was born in France in 1882. The French medical journal, which published a photograph of him in 1937, indicated his weight - 622 kg!
Johnny Ali, weighing 563 kg, lived in a wooden house in South Carolina. On March 16, 1887, a friend visited him and found John hanging from his straps. The floor broke under him and Ali died trying to free himself from the bondage.
Apparently the most famous fat man was Robert Earl Hugs, born June 4, 1926 in Monticello, Illinois. At the age of six, he weighed ninety kilograms. Until the age of nine, he gained 170 kg, and he still had 300 kg as a minor. At the age of 30, he reached his maximum weight - 530 kg. With more than a meter in biceps coverage and three meters in the waist, he could not move for many years and at the end of 1956 fell seriously ill.
His family decided to be hospitalized, but he could not go through any of the hospital doors and an extension was specially built for him in the hospital yard, on a concrete foundation, because any bed would have broken under him. Despite intensive care, he died in 1958. The funeral service had to be held in the open air, since it could not be brought into the doors of the church.
The fourth member of the half-ton club is Mikhail Bulker, who weighed exactly 500 kg. He was born in 1934 in Texas, and since 1967 he has already lost the ability to move and spent days and nights on a huge bed in a car trailer with glass walls. When summer came, he rode with itinerant circuses, returning for the winter to Hypstone, Florida. Bulker's obesity was triggered by significant physical impairment.
HEAVIEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD
Although the heaviest people are mostly men, there are overweight women, of whom many have gained popularity. Jolly Daisy, for example, weighs 370 kg. She became famous for two things: she gave a big reward to someone who would keep her on her knees for 5 minutes, or she invited the audience to throw coins on the stage, and then lifted them with her vast ass in front of the audience to their unimaginable pleasure.
Baby Ruth, née Ruth Smith, quickly found herself in the world of the circus. Her mother, who was also a fat woman, exhibited her daughter, who weighed 290 kg, in all states of the United States. Her husband Joe Portic almost from the first day of their marriage began selling tickets to performances with the participation of his wife. Once, when Ruth was visiting her sister, she became the victim of the same misfortune that killed John Ali - the floor of the house fell under her.
However, she was soon pulled out with the help of ropes, pulleys and a hoist, but now her fate has become unenviable. After the operation, she lost consciousness and choked on her own vomit, as she was very heavy and could not turn on her side. Disconsolate after her death, Joe said that it took 16 men to put her body in a coffin.
Two very fat women have made successful attempts to lose weight. Ms. Steele from Memphis, as well as Celeste Geyer, better known as Dolly Dimples, were some of the few who managed to leave the world of unusual people and enter the world of normal. At the age of 40, Steele decided to lose weight in order to get married and have a baby. During 19 months, during which she did not eat anything, but only drank a mixture of water, strong coffee and some special elixir, her weight decreased from 220 to 90 kg.
Speaking of Celeste Geyer, you can see that her curvaceous forms, a bust of 180 cm made her the main attraction of every performance. 280 kg of weight brought her 300 dollars daily. She had many names, and in 1925 she finally married Frank Geyer, an old acquaintance from childhood from Cincinnati.
For her huge income, Dolly built herself a house in Florida that would withstand any hurricane. The floor was concrete to support the weight of her body, and armchairs, chairs, sofas and bed were made of steel pipes and bolted to the floor. The windows, doors and toilet were enormous, as was the kitchen table, which was supposed to fit Dolly's daily diet: 2 kg of meat, 4 loaves of bread, 2 kg of potatoes and 8 liters of milk, not counting countless rolls, ice cream and desserts.
Continuing this lifestyle, Dolly soon found it difficult to move and breathe. Her doctor's conclusion was clear - lose weight or die. Fortunately for Dolly, it was at this moment in her life that she fell in love with a man who loved thin women. She went out of her way to lose weight by limiting her diet to no more than 800 calories a day.
And after 14 months she lost over 180 kg! No longer able to earn a living, the former plump woman began to predict the future. In 1967 she wore a size 38 dress and weighed only 50 kg.
Struck by her own reincarnation, she decided to share her experience with readers. She called her book of memoirs “How I Lost 230 Kilograms”. The book's success, however, was as delicate as its new figure.
FATTY FAMILIES
In the 1930s, the American circus owner Eddie Carn came up with the idea that it was possible to interest the audience in fat men by weighing them on stage. Inviting ten of the fattest women he could find, he went on tour with them in 1932 and 1938.
Other impresario featured members of the fat families, such as the Carlson sisters Baby Irene and Baby Betty, the twins Dorothy and Florence, and the siblings Barry and Jane Worth. The idea paid off and soon several members of the same family could be seen at the performances.
The audience was, for example, three children, of whom the eldest, sixteen, weighed 180 kg, and the youngest, four years old, weighed 80 kg. The total weight of the entire Webb family, which had six children, reached almost 1800 kg.
FATS TODAY
Now there are many obese people in the world and not everyone can live off performances in circuses. It is difficult for them to use public transport, there are many problems with furniture, with clothes, they have difficulties with finding a job.
Harvey Weiss was sentenced to four months in prison in January 1977 for check forgery. Weighing 200 kg, Weiss tried to ask for a pardon, claiming that no bed in the prison could withstand him, that he would not fit on a bunk and could crush more than one toilet bowl.
The judges, however, were not convinced by a single argument. The guards allowed Weiss to take his own clothes with him, as none of the prisoners' uniforms suited him. Several mattresses were placed on the floor of his cell so that he could sleep on them, and a prison specialist designed a latrine for him.
Manuel Uribe was considered the fattest man of our time. He died in 2014
In Germany, more than half of the population suffers from high weight - 47% of men and 55% of women. This costs the country about $ 7 billion annually in medical expenses. One of the German airlines weighs passengers before flights within the country and requires an additional payment to the ticket from persons whose weight exceeds a certain norm.
In the United States, 25 to 30% of the population suffers from varying degrees of obesity. Many entrepreneurs, for example, try not to hire overweight workers when hiring. For these reasons, the American Fellowship International was formed a few years ago. Under the leadership of Elizabeth Fisher, the partnership helps overweight people overcome difficulties.
Recently, obese persons may undergo a complex operation for the truncation of part of the intestine. However, such an operation is very risky and unsafe. In addition, fat people are prone to cardiovascular disease and may not withstand anesthesia. Another inconvenience of even a successful operation is going to the toilet every two to three hours.
The fattest man in the world in history
The fattest person in the world in history is an American named Carol Yeager, with a maximum weight of 727 kilograms. She is also the fattest woman on earth. Carol was born in 1960, American Flint, Michigan.
And as a little girl, she began to differ from her peers in weight and impressive dimensions. The main reason for its fullness is its irrepressible appetite. Carol admitted that the desire to eat haunts her after she experienced severe stress - one of her relatives harassed her.
At 20, Carol Yeager weighed so much that her own legs could not support her. The girl was confined to the bed, she could not even make elementary movements. She was looked after by her daughter Heather and paramedics. Gradually, everyone began to realize that weight would play a pretty bad joke on Carol's health. Every day the situation rolled downhill - the girl got fat.
As a result, the American was able to reach the famous nutritionist Richard Simmons and showman Jerry Springer. At the latter, Carol began to participate in the program, advertising it. And as payment she received free treatment. However, later it turned out that she had not received any help from the nutritionist.
In the hope of somehow improving her well-being, Carol Yeager began to travel to local clinics. But then she also faced failure - the doctors could not help her. Due to excess weight and bed rest, the girl began to find new diseases and their complications. Hospitalizations became regular - an American woman was taken away 8-10 times a year.
Moreover, firefighters and their special equipment participated in each transportation, otherwise it would simply not have been possible to take such a fat man to the hospital. In 1993, during another hospitalization, Carol's weight reached 540 kilograms. She suffered from edema. The liquid did not have time to leave the body, as a result, it pressed on the internal organs and even appeared through the skin.
At the Hurley Medical Center, Carol Yeager managed to lose 235 kilograms while sitting on a special diet. She was helped to remove excess water from the body. In addition, nutritionists allowed her to eat only 1200 calories a day. But losing weight did not save the woman from heart failure, impaired breathing and excess blood sugar.
Carol returned from the clinic three months later and began to get fat again. The lost kilograms returned in full, the woman gained unprecedented weight - 727 kilograms. And, as a result, she became known as the fattest man in the world and as the fattest woman. Her body width reached 1.5 meters, and her mass index was 251, while the norm was only 18-25. However, the weight of 727 kilograms was not officially registered. It was only confirmed by the public.
Earlier, representatives of the Guinness Book of Records measured Carol, then, with an increase of 170 centimeters, she weighed 544 kilograms. This mark was not enough for a new record. After another hospitalization in 1994, Carol Yeager passed away. She died at the age of 34. Doctors recorded the weight at the time of death - 545 kilograms.