The heaviest person in medical history was Jon Brower Minnoch (USA)(1941–83), who had suffered from obesity since childhood. He was 185 cm (6 ft 1 in) tall and weighed 178 kg (392 lb or 28 st) in 1963, 317 kg (700 lb or 50 st) in 1966 and 442 kg (975 lb or 69 st 9 lb) in September 1976. In March 1978, Minnoch was admitted to University Hospital, Seattle, where consultant endocrinologist Dr Robert Schwartz calculated that Minnoch must have weighed more than 635 kg (1,400 lb or 100 st), a great deal of which was water accumulation due to his congestive heart failure.

In order to get to University Hospital, Seattle, it took a dozen firemen and an improvized stretcher to move him from his home to a ferry-boat. When he arrived at the hospital, saturated with fluid and suffering from heart and respiratory failure, he was put in two beds lashed together. It took 13 people just to roll him over.

After nearly two years on a diet of 1,200 calories per day, he was discharged at 216 kg (476 lb or 34 st).

In October 1981 he had to be readmitted, after putting on over 89 kg (197 lb or 34 st).

When he died on 10 September 1983 he weighed more than 362 kg (798 lb or 57 st).