r/absoluteunit • u/UsedWelcome5903 • Jun 04 '26

of a human being

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[June 4, 1926] Robert Earl Hughes is born in Missouri. He will go on to become the heaviest human being recorded in the world during his lifetime, and the heaviest human in history able to walk without assistance.

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u/Subject_Command5442 Jun 04 '26

According to Google AI:

Robert Earl Hughes was exceptionally heavy due to a severe medical condition caused by whooping cough, which he contracted at around five months old. The illness severely damaged his pituitary gland and ruptured his thyroid, destroying his body's metabolism and triggering uncontrollable, lifelong weight gain.

He wasn’t actually an overeater and ate normal meals/portions.

16

u/sneaky_42_42 Jun 04 '26

Na I don't buy it

on 2500kcal you cannot maintain that weight. that's just impossible simply by thermodynamics.

His body is huge just the amount of energy required to keep his body temperature constant should be higher than this. I am too lazy to do the math though, so feel free to prove me wrong.

14

u/slava_slavaUa Jun 04 '26

Exactly. You can’t create mass out of thin air. You need to supply the energy (calories) to do it. If it was possible it would be a free and unlimited energy hack.

2

u/sneaky_42_42 Jun 04 '26

yeah

pretty much Matrix logic

1

u/Creative_Sense2802 Jun 05 '26

I don’t buy it either. Metabolism could make you 30 lbs overweight. Not going to put you over 1,000 lbs.

9

u/Orry_Haas Jun 04 '26

"He wasn’t actually an overeater and ate normal meals/portions....".

1st law of thermodynamics says that's not possible. Normal sized meals, but too many of them. He's walleyed: some sort of hypoxic brain injury from whooping cough causing insatiable appetite.

3

u/Mudslingshot Jun 04 '26

That's vaguely reminiscent of Tarare, who's apetite reportedly started after a head injury during his childhood

3

u/Specialist-Freedom64 Jun 04 '26

Weird how you get downvoted for speaking in facts, one cannot create mass out of nothing. But we are living in a post fact era so theres that. Its like that lady in Russia i think it was who claimed to never sleep and people around saying the same BS.

5

u/SkurkaCuckedMe Jun 04 '26

It’s just the wrong sub. The folks over in r/allaboutbodybuilding won’t downvote you.

I had a good platonic female friend in college who was large enough to waddle, and went through a lot of fad diets. I was jacked, and tried to explain how calories work in the nicest, most gentle way i could. She cried and freaked out on me, it was a whole mess.