



According to the Guinness Book of Records, Dzhambulat “Dzhambik” Khatokhov became world’s heaviest child in 2003. “Dzhambik” was 3-feet 11-inches in height and weighed 123lbs.

He was just four-years-old.

His mother, Nelya Kabardarkova, said Dzhambik’s ambition was to become a Sumo wrestler.

When he was five, Nelya took her son to Japan to appear on the TV show Impossible. It was the start of a brief media career that led to several documentaries, and a rash of news items on the child.

Dzhambik weighed 6-lbs 6-oz at birth. As he grew, Nelya said that he ate 3-4 meals a day. He was always hungry. She has denied that she deliberately overfed him.

By the age of seven, Dzhambik was 4-ft 3-inches, and weighed 224lbs..

By the age of nine, he weighed 406lbs.

In an interview with the Guardian in 2006, Neyla told Nick Paton Walsh:

“He does not eat that much.” Then she adds: “He is happy that size. It is not shameful. He likes showing people how strong he is.”

So, whatever happened to Dzhambik?

Anorak recently posted a blog asking the same question. It would appear, that Dzhambik continued to grow, continued to make money, and continued to have a form of celebrity. Yet, the videos they posted only take Dzhambik up-to the age of eleven.

Where is he now? What is he doing? And is he happy doing it?

On September 24th, Dzhambik will celebrate his fourteenth birthday. It is difficult not to think of Dzhambik in terms of statistics: weight, height, age. But that sadly is perhaps how Neyla wants him to be seen. For being the world’s heaviest child can still make money.



Dzhambik aged 10.



Dzhambik aged 11.





H/T Anorak