For some people, gaining weight is something that can seem like a huge problem. However, they just cannot help but gain weight because it is their way to cope with their problems or just like eating. There are many reasons why someone might be highly obese or overweight, and it differs from case to case. It is essential to understand more about it before you judge them. Weight gain is a known struggle among many people, but it is still something that you might want to get to know more about. You might be asking a question along the lines, “how heavy is the heaviest person in the world?” In this article, you will learn more about weight gain and the answer to this question.

Leading causes of obesity and weight gain

Obesity is indeed a massive problem for many people in the world because it comes to a lot of different illnesses such as high blood pressure and high blood sugar. It can also bring about metabolic problems that can risk a person developing heart diseases and diabetes. This is why most people would try to avoid gaining weight as much as possible. However, for some people, it is something that they cannot control or is utterly inevitable to them. Here are some of the leading causes of obesity and weight gain that would help you understand what might be happening to you or someone you know.

Genetics

This plays a large part in weight gain as the children of parents who are obese are highly likely to be obese as well. It does not predetermine obesity, but it is a huge factor in the genes of a person. Basically, depending on what you eat, people whose parents are obese are highly likely to get fat as they are bound to have a slower metabolism than other people.

Junk foods

Processed foods are considered very bad for the body, which is why they are cheap and long-lasting. The huge problem is that they taste very good, which makes them hard to resist. The manufacturers try to make it taste as good as possible to increase their sales, but it also promotes overeating. Most of the processed food available in the market is designed to make people hooked on them, causing them to get addicted. Junk foods have many chemicals in them to have them preserved to last longer, and these can have adverse effects on the body.

Food addiction

Some people are addicted to alcohol, while some get high on drugs. But not a lot know that food addiction is also a condition. This is when an individual loses control over their eating behavior, and it can feel like those that are struggling to stop drinking alcohol or recovering from drug usage. Addiction is something that can be very hard to overcome, and that is one of the reasons why people who struggle with their weight can have such a hard time in regards to it.

Medications

If a person has a pre-existing medical condition, it is possible that the medications they take have a side effect of weight gain. For example, antidepressants which are one of the medications taken by people who are suffering from depression, have been linked to weight gain.

The story of the heaviest person alive

Back in 2016, a man named Juan Pedro Franco Salas, who resides in the city of Aguascalientes in central Mexico, was reported to weigh about 594.8, earning him the title of the heaviest person in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records. It is said that he has been suffering from obesity since he was a child and his condition worsened as he grew older. He tried to diet, but he felt like nothing was working. However, there came the point when he had to leave his home to go to the hospital because he had to undergo a huge treatment because of his type-2 diabetes, hypertension, thyroid dysfunction, and more. Due to the operation, he was starting to have a new exercise regime as well as a new diet plan. By 2019, he has already lost around half of his weight.

Top 5 heaviest persons in the world

Besides Juan Pedro, there are a lot of other people in the world that are struggling with their weight and suffering from extreme obesity. Below are the top 5 heaviest people in the world that comes after the Guinness World record holder.

Manuel Uribe

Manual Uribe was born in Mexico in 1965, and he got to a weight of 597 because of his diet consisting of pizzas and tacos, and he was bound tohis bed since 2001 because of this. His mother was the one who looked after him and all of his needs as he couldn’t leave his bed due to his weight. When he was a baby, he was on average weight, but he noticed that he had a big appetite which was perfectly fine until he hit his twenties, and he started having a sedentary life that led to his obesity. It mainly was the fast-food diet popular in the US that really factored into him gaining so much weight in such a short time.

Robert Earl Hughes

Robert had excessive weight, which is said to be caused by the malfunction of his pituitary gland, and he reached about 480kg in terms of weight. He was once awarded the heaviest person in the world for it, but he passed away in 1926; soon after, he got sick of measles that developed further into uremia.

Paul Mason

Once considered to be the heaviest person in the world was a man named Paul Mason, 53, and weighed about 444.5kg. It is said that he used to eat about 20,000 calories in a day which was about ten times more than what the average man consumes in a day. It was caused because of a heartbreak that he experienced when he was in his twenties. He said it was also because of his father’s death and his mom’s bad health. He got depressed and used food as his escape from his problems.

Donna Simpson

A woman, 47, Donna Simpson, announced back in 2008 that she wanted to try and become one of the heaviest women in the world and that her ideal weight was 450kg. She even went as far as to set up a site for herself where fans could pay to watch her eat. She may not have achieved her goal, but she did get herself a dubious honor for the heaviest woman to give birth when she gave birth to a baby through C-section that required 30 doctors to accomplish.

Kenneth Brumley

This man had gained a lot of attention when he appeared on TV weight about 468kg and is bound to his bed for at least four years. When he got admitted to the hospital as a bypass patient, the crew had to demolish an entire wall in order to pull him out of the house. The doctors had to do the gastric bypass operation in different stages, each process lasting about 5 hours.