What is the heaviest person ever

Jon Brower Minnoch

Heaviest ever recorded human (19411983)

Jon Brower Minnoch (September 29, 1941 September 4, 1983)^[2] was an American man who was the heaviest recorded human in history, weighing approximately 1,400lb (635 kilograms; 100 stone) at his peak.^{[3][note 1]} Obese since childhood, Minnoch normally weighed 800900lb (363408 kilograms; 5764 stone) during his adult years. He owned a taxi company and worked as a driver around his home in Bainbridge Island, Washington.

In an attempt to lose weight, Minnoch went on a 600kcal (2,500kJ) per day diet under a doctor's orders. As a result, Minnoch was bedridden for about three weeks before finally agreeing to go to a hospital in March 1978. It took over a dozen firefighters to transport him to the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle. Doctors diagnosed Minnoch with a massive edema, and an endocrinologist estimated his weight to be approximately 1,400lb (635 kilograms; 100 stone). His physicians placed him on a 1,200kcal (5,000kJ) per day diet where, after around two years in the hospital, he lost over 900lb (408kg; 64st)the largest documented human weight loss at the time.^{[note 2]} After leaving the hospital, Minnoch regained much of the weight and died in September 1983, weighing nearly 800lb (363kg; 57st) at his death. Minnoch's casket took up two burial spots at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Seattle.

Life

Early and personal life

Minnoch was born in 1941 in Seattle, Washington,^[6] to John Minnoch and June (ne Brower).^[7] When Minnoch was an infant, his parents moved from Seattle to an apartment at a Bellingham hotel.^[8] He was an only child.^[9] Minnoch's father worked as a machinist and died of a heart attack in 1962.^[10] Minnoch's mother was a graduate of Seattle Pacific University and worked as a registered nurse at Providence Hospital and later as a telephone operator. June died in 1986, three years after her son.^[9] Minnoch's grandfather, Peter, was born in Scotland and emigrated to Ogden City, Utah, in 1876 with the Latter-Day Saints movement.^[11]

Minnoch suffered from obesity since childhood.^[12] At the age of 12, he weighed 294lb (133 kilograms; 21.0 stone). By age 22, he weighed 392lb (178 kilograms; 28.0 stone) and became 700lb (320 kilograms; 50 stone) in 1963.^[13] Minnoch usually weighed 800900lb (363408 kilograms; 5764 stone)^[14] and stood 6ft 1in (1.85m) in height.^[15] He had a body fat percentage of about 80%.^[16] Minnoch said water retention was the primary cause of his obesity.^[17] British obesity specialist David Haslam contends Minnoch's water retention was a consequence of his severe weight, not the cause of it.^[18]

Despite his condition, Minnoch tried to live a conventional life^[13] and stated that he was "in no way handicapped".^[18] He attended Bothell High School^[19] and drove water taxis for 17 years.^[20] He married his wife, Jean McArdle, in 1963.^[6] The couple operated the Bainbridge Island Taxi Co. together,^[1] the only taxi cab on the island at the time.^[18] According to a friend, Minnoch had a reputation as a "warm and funny family man" on the island.^[18] In March 1978, Minnoch weighed 12 times his 110lb (50 kilograms; 8 stone) wife,^[14] breaking the record for the greatest weight disparity between a married couple.^[21] Minnoch and McArdle divorced in 1980^[22] and he married Shirley Ann Griffen in 1982.^[7] He fathered two sons,^[23] John and Jason.^[1]

Hospitalizations and death

Minnoch eventually "got so tired" of being heavy that he decided to cut his food intake to "almost nothing".^[20] Under a doctor's prescription, he went on a 600-calorie-a-day diet of only vegetables.^[24] He also took large doses of a diuretic that failed to eliminate excess fluid in his body.^[17] After about three weeks of weakness and being bedridden, he listened to his wife's pleas to enter a hospital.^[24] Minnoch was admitted to the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle in March 1978, suffering from heart and respiratory failure.^[13] Firefighters were forced to remove a window at his home and place him on a thick piece of plywood.^[20] Minnoch was unable to move or speak.^[25] It took over a dozen firemen, rescue personnel, and a specially modified stretcher to transport him to the hospital. There, he was placed on two beds pushed together, and it took thirteen attendants to roll him over.^[13]

At the hospital, Minnoch was diagnosed with a massive edema, a condition in which the body accumulates excess extracellular fluid. Due to his poor health, measuring his weight with a scale was impossible.^[13] However, endocrinologist Robert Schwartz estimated his weight to be about 1,400lb (635 kilograms; 100 stone).^[20] According to Schwartz, he was "probably more than that. He was by at least 300 pounds the heaviest person ever reported", and "probably the most unusual thing about [Minnoch's] case was that he lived".^[20] He reached a peak body mass index (BMI) of 186kg/m^2[26] and spent several days on a respirator.^[17] In April 1978, his doctors described his medical state as "critical". Schwartz said Minnoch displayed symptoms of Pickwickian syndrome, where insufficient breathing causes one's level of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream to rise.^[27]

Minnoch remained in the hospital for two years and was put on a diet of 1,200kcal (5,000kJ) per day. When discharged from the hospital, he weighed 476lb (216kg; 34st), having lost 924lb (419kg; 66st), the largest human weight loss ever documented at the time.^[15] He hoped to eventually reach a weight of about 210lb (95 kilograms; 15 stone), stating, "I've waited 37 years to get this chance at a new life".^[20] Despite this, he soon started to gain weight again.^[13] He was readmitted to the hospital just over a year later in October 1981,^[28] after his weight increased to 952lb (432kg; 68st);^[13] he had managed to gain 200lb (91kg; 14st) in just seven days.^[29] He died 23 months later on September 4, 1983, aged 41.^[30] At the time of his death, he weighed 798lb (362kg; 57st).^[13] According to his death certificate, Minnoch's immediate cause of death was cardiac arrest, with respiratory failure and restrictive lung disease as contributing factors.^[2] He was buried in a wooden casket made of plywood 34 inch (20mm) thick and lined with cloth. The coffin took up two cemetery plots, and around 11 men were needed to transport his casket to his burial place at Mount Pleasant Cemetery.^[31]

See also

Notes

1. ^ While Minnoch was the heaviest person in history, Robert Earl Hughes (19261958) holds the record, according to Guinness World Records, for the largest "precisely measured weight for a human" at 1,069lb (485 kilograms; 76.4 stone).^[4]
2. ^ This record was surpassed by the Saudi Arabian man Khalid bin Mohsen Shaari, who lost 1,203lb (546 kilograms; 86 stone) between 2014 and 2021.^[5]

1. ^ McArdle preferred to be called Jean.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Obituaries". Bainbridge Island Review. Vol.114, no.47. November 28, 2014. p.A33. ISSN1053-2889. OCLC849658486.
2. ^ ^{a b} Certificate of Death, Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, retrieved June 3, 2023
3. ^ Multiple sources:
   • Newsholme, Eric; Leech, Anthony (September 9, 2011). Functional Biochemistry in Health and Disease. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN978-1-119-96524-4. Retrieved May 30, 2023. The heaviest person recorded in the Guinness Book of Records was John Brower Minnoch...
   • Wright, James D. (May 11, 2018). Lost Souls: Manners and Morals in Contemporary American Society (1ed.). New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781351011617. ISBN978-1-351-01159-4. Retrieved May 30, 2023. The heaviest person ever documented was Jon Brower Minnoch, who died in 1983. At his peak, Minnoch stood 6'1'' tall and weighed about 1400 pounds...
   • Hamid, Tarek K. A. (2009). Thinking in Circles About Obesity. New York: Springer. p.321. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-09469-4. ISBN978-0-387-09468-7. Retrieved May 30, 2023. The fattest human on record, Jon Minnoch of Bainbridge Island, Washington, weighed an estimated 1400 lb...
   • Olds, Tim (2015). "Superphysiques". Australasian Science. 36 (5): 40. Retrieved May 30, 2023. The heaviest person who ever lived, American John Minnoch (194183), weighed 635 kg.
   • Williams, David R. (October 31, 2007). What is Safe?: Risks of Living in a Nuclear Age. Cambridge, UK: Royal Society of Chemistry. p.69. ISBN978-1-84755-236-5. Retrieved May 30, 2023. The world's heaviest man weighed 100 stone (J.B. Minnoch, 1983, in USA)...
   • Bondeson, Jan (2018). The Lion Boy and Other Medical Curiosities. Stroud, UK: Amberley Publishing. ISBN978-1-4456-7629-6. Retrieved May 30, 2023. The world's heaviest person, the American Jon Brower Minnoch (1941-1983) weighed in at 100 stone...
4. ^ Nickell, Joe (2005). Secrets of the Sideshows. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. p.93. ISBN978-0-8131-2358-5. JSTORj.ctt2jcf40.
5. ^ "World's heaviest teen, Khaled Mohsen Al Shaeri, reveals dramatic weight loss". New Zealand Herald. December 28, 2021. Retrieved June 29, 2023.
6. ^ ^{a b} "Kitsap County Auditor, Marriage Records, 1860-2014 - Jon Brower Minnoch - Carolyn Jean Mcardle". Washington State Digital Archives. Retrieved June 3, 2023.
7. ^ ^{a b} "Department of Health, Marriage Certificates, 1968-1998 - Jon - B - Minnoch - Et Al". Washington State Digital Archives. Retrieved June 3, 2023.
8. ^ "Social and Personal". The Bellingham Herald. December 4, 1941. p.6 via Newspapers.com.
9. ^ ^{a b} "Obituaries". Kitsap Sun. February 19, 1986. p.6 via Newspapers.com.
10. ^ "Obituaries". Ogden Standard Examiner. Vol.75, no.314. November 11, 1962. p.36 via NewspaperArchive.
11. ^ "Death Claims Peter Minnoch". Deseret News. September 7, 1905. p.17. ISSN0745-4724. Retrieved June 27, 2023.
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13. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Fahy, Thomas (April 2017). "Disturbing Appetites: Food, Fatness, and 1980s American Culture in Stephen King's Thinner". The Journal of Popular Culture. 50 (2). Wiley-Blackwell: 312. doi:10.1111/jpcu.12509. ISSN0022-3840. LCCNsf80000702. OCLC1754751. Retrieved May 30, 2023.
14. ^ ^{a b} Roberts, William Clifford (1991). "Human records and a tribute to the Guinness Book of World Records". The American Journal of Cardiology. 68 (2). Elsevier: 288289. doi:10.1016/0002-9149(91)90770-L. ISSN0002-9149. LCCN58041185. OCLC00850121. PMID2063805. Retrieved May 30, 2023.
15. ^ ^{a b} McDermott, Michael T. (2013), "Interesting endocrine facts and figures", Endocrine Secrets (6ed.), Philadelphia: Elsevier, pp.521524, doi:10.1016/b978-1-4557-4975-1.00071-1, ISBN978-1-4557-4975-1, retrieved May 23, 2023
16. ^ Kelly, Evelyn B. (April 19, 2018). Obesity. Health and Medical Issues Today (2nded.). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. p.29. ISBN978-1-4408-5882-6. LCCN2017056693.
17. ^ ^{a b c} "Bainbridge Island man down to 540 and losing". Ellensburg Daily Record. UPI. January 19, 1979. p.14. ISSN2834-1872. OCLC17308766.
18. ^ ^{a b c d} Haslam, David W.; Haslam, Fiona (2009). Fat, Gluttony and Sloth: Obesity in Medicine, Art and Literature. Liverpool University Press. pp.3336. ISBN978-1-84631-093-5. OCLC1301962332.
19. ^ The Cougar. Bothell Senior High School. 1958. p.68 via Ancestry.com.
20. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Roberts, Larry (July 7, 1979). "900 pounds down, 265 to go". Wisconsin State Journal. UPI. p.3. Retrieved May 30, 2023 via NewspaperArchive.
21. ^ "Greatest weight differential - married couple". Guinness World Records. Jim Pattison Group. March 1978. Retrieved May 27, 2023.
22. ^ "Department of Health, Divorce Certificates, 1968-1998 - Minnoch - Jon - B - Et Al". Washington State Digital Archives. Retrieved June 3, 2023.
23. ^ McFarlan, Donald, ed. (1989). Guinness Book of World Records: 1990. Sterling Publishing. p.12. ISBN978-0-8069-5790-6.
24. ^ ^{a b} "900-lb. man hospitalized". Madison Capital Times. Associated Press. March 30, 1978. p.6. OCLC7351334. Retrieved May 30, 2023 via NewspaperArchive.
25. ^ Daume, Daphne; Davis, J.E., eds. (1980). Britannica Book of the Year. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica. p.53. ISBN9780852293720. ISSN0068-1156. LCCN38-12082.
26. ^ Baker, Rose (June 2010). "The Problem of Obesity: can Mathematics help?" (PDF). Mathematics Today. 46. Institute of Mathematics and its Applications: 141. Retrieved May 30, 2023.
27. ^ "900 Pound Man Said Critical". Gettysburg Times. Associated Press. April 5, 1978. p.9. OCLC12443209. Retrieved May 30, 2023 via NewspaperArchive.
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29. ^ "World Records". The Boston Globe. May 6, 1990. p.400. ISSN0743-1791. OCLC66652431. Retrieved May 30, 2023 via Newspapers.com.
30. ^ "Deaths". Evening Independent. Associated Press. September 16, 1983. p.13A. OCLC2720408. Retrieved June 28, 2023.
31. ^ "800-pound man buried". The Desert Sun. Palm Springs. Associated Press. September 16, 1983. pp.A4. OCLC26432381. Retrieved May 30, 2023 via California Digital Newspaper Collection.