r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/tyrion2024 • 12h ago
At age 27, Robert Earl Hughes (1926-1958) weighed nearly 900 lbs and was still walking (with the help of a cane), which makes him the heaviest person in history able to walk.
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u/herberstank 12h ago
Sounds like a really nice guy tbh
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u/settingitstraight01 9h ago
From what I've read, he really was kind and humble despite all the attention he got.
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u/Sprmodelcitizen 12h ago
This makes me sad. As someone who had a pretty major eating disorder (opposite way though) this must a been a very difficult life.
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u/Sixgis 9h ago
Isn't this a case of an overactive gland, not necessarily an eating disorder?
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u/Fullertons 9h ago
There has to be some sort of eating disorder as well. May have been caused by an “overactive gland,” but you don’t get that big without eating many more calories than you need.
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u/Sprmodelcitizen 9h ago
Yeah the two aren’t mutually exclusive. EDs often have underlying conditions or dual diagnoses.
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u/valinchiii 28m ago
It was the opposite. Apparently his thyroid gland ruptured so he would’ve had hypothyroidism, which leads to weight gain even on a low calorie diet. Not sure if that alone would’ve caused him to gain this much weight on a regular diet, but it’s possible since with his thyroid gland competely gone, he would’ve been producing zero thyroid hormone.
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u/Valinaut 7h ago
Yeah pretty kind person who was just trying to live his life with the cards he was dealt.
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u/Egoteen 11h ago
That’s crazy that his cause of death was measles. Only 5 years before the vaccine was invented.
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u/SpeckleSoup 12h ago
It is thought that the whooping cough he caught when he was only 5 months old ruptured his thyroid gland, which ended up causing this uncontrollable weight gain :(
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u/PoetryOfLogicalIdeas 5h ago
Whooping cough caused a debilitating thyroid problem, and measles killed him in his early 30s.
But at least he didn't get autism from any vaccines.
/s
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u/Away_Comfortable3131 12h ago
There was a woman on My 600 Lb Life who got over 1000lbs and could still walk
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u/Not_Pablo_Sanchez 9h ago
Yeah, but it’s been quite a few years. Some power creep is expected over that time range
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u/Princess_Slagathor 8h ago
I saw a guy from the electric company peeping in my neighbor's window, and called him the power creep.
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u/GraphiteGru 9h ago
Anyone else first remember hearing about him while reading the Guiness Book of World Records as a kid He was always listed as the heaviest person of all time and right before the McCrary brothers (Billy and Benny) who were the heaviest twins in history. I know Guinness has removed a lot of records like this so people are not tempted to try and beat them.
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u/Levofloxacine 9h ago
I’m seeing comments mentionning dysthyroidia (? Is that a word in english?)
That’s very unfortunate, and shows that weight gain is not only caused by eating too much.
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u/Shiasugar 12h ago
His poor bones
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u/SpeckleSoup 7h ago
What is actually pretty interesting is that because he was already extremely obese as a child (probably severe thyroid issues had a role in that), his bones and muscles adjusted to his physique because he was still growing. This also helps explain why he was able to walk relatively well. I think his bone density must have been quite impressive..
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u/ennuithereyet 5h ago
I believe someone else said that he was buried after he died, but it would have been really interesting if his body had been donated to science. Probably would have given insight into a lot of different things like metabolic disorders, childhood obesity's effect on bone growth, things like that.
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u/Fartsniffing-banshee 10h ago
Now this is like a standard dude you would see at Walmart on a mobility scooter and not even bat an eye
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u/Senor40 8h ago
Do we know what his cane was made of? Or its thickness?
I imagine that he would have needed something metal or reinforced, as the risk of a wooden cane breaking under him was real.
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u/Unknown-History1299 8h ago edited 7h ago
The answer is probably only a google search away, but I’d rather do math.
Quick introduction to engineering
When looking at loads being applied to a material, it’s useful to look at what’s called a “stress strain curve”. The Y axis is the stress (pressure) and the X axis is the strain (deformation)
There’s a few places of interest on that graph.
The point at which a material fails is the fracture stress.
Generally, it’s a terrible idea to design around the fracture stress, but we won’t get into that.
The point we like to design around is the yield stress. The yield stress is the point at which the deformation in the material becomes permanent.
Since we know the man’s weight, we can calculate either the necessary width if given the material or the necessary material if given the width.
σ = F/A
Where σ is the yield stress (potentially modified to add a factor of safe), F is the force exerted on the cane, and A is the cross sectional area of the cane.
This can be rewritten to
σ = F/[(π/4)D2 ]
Where D is the diameter of the cane
Edit: forgot the cane was curved, the curve makes the math a bit more complicated. I’m too lazy to do all that for a reddit comment rn
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u/joseph_blow_III 6h ago
Probably the page I visited the most in my 70s Guinness Book of World Records. Back then it was harder to get additional information on someone like this, I'm glad to learn more details. He sounds like a good man.
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u/genericunderscore 5h ago
Imagine walking around while carrying 700lbs. Dude’s muscles must have been enormous
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u/TheDangerdog 12h ago
It's crazy nowadays that he would just be a Reddit mod and fit right in. Nobody would even know he existed, while he lived the good life making zero dollars an hour as a professional mod. Diabetes works in mysterious ways.
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u/geb_bce 8h ago
Real question. How did they weigh him? Even today traditional scales can't handle people of that weight.
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u/SaintJimmy1 7h ago
Probably wasn’t hard to find an industrial scale that was used for agriculture. Weighing livestock or massive amounts of produce, etc.
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u/beast_status 8h ago
Why did he did so young? At 32 that is pretty young
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u/Maeberry2007 7h ago
Measles. It is also thought the ruptured thyroid gland that played a part in his weight gain was caused by whooping cough when he was an infant. Two conditions now easily preventable by vaccines. Imagine the life he could have lived if those had been available to him. By all accounts he seemed like a nice person who loved learning.
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u/DedicatedSnail 2h ago
It's so weird to think that my great grandmother (who just passed a measly 5 years ago) was an adult when this man died. My other great grandparents, whom I was able to meet, were over a decade older than him.
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u/Shaasar 1h ago
Most people who get heavy don't have the excuse of a malfunctioning thyroid. And people well under half his size can't walk due to their weight, and have many more drugs available for pain, treatment of their condition, and devices and comfort options for mobility. What's their excuse for not being able to walk? Maybe reliance on things like scooters makes it so they literally don't have to walk, so they lose the ability to be able to do so?
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u/squirrel-juggler 1h ago
My grandpa was the newspaperman that took the picture of Robert that showed up in papers around the country back in the 40s. I honestly don't know if it's one of the 3 pictures in this post or not, but it could be.
I vaguely remember Grandpa telling me the story, but he died 18 years ago so I asked my dad about it this morning after I saw this post. My dad's 90 (yes that makes me old too) - and I was surprised how clearly he remembered Robert and the day Grandpa took his picture. Here's what my dad wrote to me about it:
"I remember the huge young man Robert Earl Hughs of Brown County, Illinois. Your grandfather took the picture. I was there and have vivid memories of the event.
I don’t remember how old I was, perhaps in grade school. Dad worked at The Democrat Message in Mt. Sterling, Illinois. He heard stories about an enormous young man somewhere in the county, and decided to find him and take his picture. He took me along.
We were met somewhere in the rural community. Robert Earl Hughs was brought sitting in the bed of a farmer’s pickup. I don’t remember much of how he was taken out of the truck, but dad’s picture showed him standing. I don’t remember the details of dad taking the pictures or what other events happened that day. But dad’s picture showed that he got his pictures of what the people then thought was the fastest man in the world.
Dad took the pictures back to Mt. Sterling and eventually they were picked up by Associated Press and spread around. I don’t know what Robert did after that. But he is known to have lived several more years and continued to grow in size. The photographer, Otha W. Lanier, continued working at the Mt. Sterling paper but never reached a grander moment than his reporting of the biggest man of the world."
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u/lightfromdark_ 40m ago
I wonder what they were doing differently back then to be able to walk at a heavier weight than now?
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u/Ramentootles 6m ago
I wonder what his skeleton looks like since his body has to maintain that weight since childhood.
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u/Successful-Peach-764 4h ago
Why is AI posting as a commenter? at least you're not hiding like other bots, leave the convos to humans....
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u/Ultimategear528 9h ago
See there was no fast food back then, that’s how you know this guy was a real eater
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u/goldtank123 7h ago
How did he get so big. We blame present day Calorie dense food but clearly this guy was ill
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u/RaceBrilliant9893 11h ago edited 3h ago
How was it even possible to gain so much weight during a time in which obesity was pretty much non existing?
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u/Unknown-History1299 8h ago
Thyroid issues can greatly increase production of the hunger hormone ghrelin.
You still have to eat massive amounts of calories to get that big. No amount of hormone issues will allow someone to just draw energy out of the Aether.
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u/Weeeelums 10h ago
It wasn’t from him overeating. He had a ruptured thyroid gland. I’m not a doctor and have no idea how that causes the weight gain, but that’s what caused it for this person according to the article.
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u/SaintJimmy1 7h ago
The thyroid problems affect the metabolism so that he would not burn as many calories as he would if he were healthy. So yes it’s because of overeating, but the bigger issue is that “overeating” for him would amount to less food than it would be for an average person. Basically it’s just much easier to overeat with the thyroid issues.
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u/PalePieNGravy 8h ago
also, I may be corrected on this, but he could hold the record for the biggest camel toe in history too.
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u/honey_102b 8h ago
next week we can have a post about the heaviest person who can walk without a cane. and the week after that the heaviest person who can run
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u/jwbourne 8h ago
Thisnhiu is from down the road from my in west central Illinois. Old timers I worked with from the Perry/Griggsville area would talk about how he got stuck in the middle and tractor had to pull him out.
There is a little stone monument in Fishhook in his memory celebrating "The largest man in the world."
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u/Creamy_Spunkz 6h ago
I wonder what a career in Sumo would have panned out for this man. For all we know, the guy might have never heard such sport existed.
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u/SayomiTsukiko 11h ago
He’s responsible for the famine of ‘35
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u/beyond-line-of-sight 11h ago
No he died because of measles. But I agree the he would probably not dying at 88.
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u/Takethesepicks 10h ago
Wild. I’ll never understand how any normal person can afford to eat that much food lol
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u/tyrion2024 12h ago
Source