To be fair, getting fat back then was hard work.

Think about it...refined sugars weren't in everything. People had to leave their house, usually on foot, horse, or bike (the modern "safety bicycle" with equally-sized wheels and a chain-drive, came out the same decade).

You'd have to have support/enablers, and you'd have to eat a lot.

Nowadays it's easy to get fat. Everything is at our fingertips including vast amounts of unhealthy and unsatisfying food stuff. And Walmart is just a few minutes ride in a climate-controlled vehicle. And you'd have to be real heavy to get a car to not want to move you...try that with a horse.

Yes, let's blame it on moral failure rather than the destruction of walkable spaces, endangering as many outdoor spaces as possible with 3-ton emotional support vehicles, portion sizes at restaurants and grocery stores that are double of other countries because going anywhere requires committing to driving 15mins both ways and parking, and having fuck all for a health care system.

It‘s not that different today. Back then it was people paying directly. Now ads on TLC pay them.

They didn’t have junk food!

He would've been advertised by the travelling circus (freak show) as the world's fattest but they had no way to know who in fact was the world's fattest.

And this is the tallest waterfall on earth!

This guy looks EXACTLY like my neighbor. Fuckin creepy

Fair point, but are we sure he was actually the world's fattest man, or was that just what the carnival barker that sold the tickets put on the sign?

Fattest man to have been photographed in 1890.

American way of life. Would you like a straw with your 2 liters soft drink?

【Today he'd be the 3rd fattest guy at the local Walmart.]

That's assuming the Walmart mobility scooter left in the parking lot has enough of a charge to get the actual fattest guy through the doors. The pictured guy could come in 4th.

Food technology has come a long way

I don't see a fatness certificate detailing BFI.

There are people like these today that are sodium intolerant, and their body retains gigantic amounts of water just to deal with that.

I'm talking people that are way, WAY above the average sodium consumption of 2300 milligrams daily.

They don't know they are intolerant and gain abrupt amounts of weight ( 30 lbs or more in days ) just due to water retention

These are people whose maximum sodium intake should be less than 500-50 milligrams daily

Imagine what that much salt makes to a body

I think I might go do some sit-ups

• in the USA

Average day at WalMart.