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World's Heaviest and Lightest People

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:World's Heaviest Woman (not clare)

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.

Age Mass (kg) Mass (lbs) Name Year notes
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 http://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 http://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 http://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.

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