We live in an era where many women and men are trying their best to look "thin as a reed." The lean body cult has become an obsession for some celebrities, leading to anorexia.
But not all of the worst people in the world deliberately subject their bodies to suffering in order to avoid the hated pounds. There are those who are forced to live with a serious illness that makes them look like a concentration camp victim.
We present you a short history and photos of the thinnest people on Earth.
The thinnest women in the world
5. Ioana Spangenberg - weight 38 kg
The Romanian model claims that her skinny body is a natural gift, not the result of starvation. In most interviews, she disputed rumors that her appearance was caused by dietary restrictions. She even talked about trying to gain weight by eating high-calorie foods like kebabs and snacking on pizza and chips.
Ioana's waist is only 50.8 cm in volume, due to which she received the nickname "the hourglass man". However, she is still far from Katie Jung, recognized as the "queen of the corset." This 81-year-old woman has a waist measuring 38.1 centimeters. She first wore a corset during her wedding in 1959 and has worn it constantly since then. In fact, Katie was wearing a corset 24 hours a day.
The exact cause of Ioana's thinness is unknown, but some health experts attribute it to a fast metabolism.
4. Elizabeth Velazquez - weight 29 kg
Born 13 March 1989 Elizabeth (Lizzie) Velazquez is currently considered the ugliest woman in the world... But this is not the fault of exhausting diets, but of the extremely rare Wiedemann-Rautenstrauch syndrome. Only three people on the planet suffer from it, and Lizzie is one of them. This condition also causes premature aging - just like Progeria. Now the girl looks older than her age.
Lizzie has to eat every fifteen minutes to live. Therefore, she consumes 5,000 to 8,000 calories per day. Despite such a painful condition, Lizzie is a well-known motivational speaker and author of the autobiography "The story of the ugliest woman in the world, who became the happiest."
3. Valeria Levitina - weight 25 kg
Until 2014, Valeria was officially known as the thinnest woman in the world. A resident of Monaco weighed only 25 kilograms, and one can only wonder how she was not blown away by the wind. She suffered from anorexia, and all her desperate efforts to regain her lost weight were in vain. Anorexia is a very insidious condition that does not have a single cause. Most experts believe that it is due to a combination of psychological, environmental and biological factors that lead to a destructive cycle of behavior.
Valeria Levitina is a source of inspiration for young girls who want to learn from other people's mistakes.She traveled to different parts of the world to warn girls about the dangers of extreme dieting. And she hoped to someday get better in order to fulfill her dream of becoming a mother. However, in 2013 Valeria died.
2. Natalia Zhultaeva - 21 kg
In 2014, the title of the thinnest woman in the world (of those currently living) went to a Russian woman, a resident of the village of Forshtadt near Verkhneuralsk. After parting with her boyfriend, Natalya from a beautiful, moderately well-fed girl gradually began to turn into walking "skin and bones". She ate very little and only when her relatives insisted on it.
As a result, Zhultaeva's weight reached the life-threatening mark of 21 kg. This is how much an ordinary six-year-old child weighs.
Her story gained all-Russian fame after, in December 2014, Natalya, along with her mother, took part in the popular "Let them talk" program.
Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of doctors and the care of her mother, the girl was able to overcome her condition. In 2015, information appeared that Natalya was on the mend.
1.Kristina Koryagina - 17 kg
26-year-old Christina started having nutritional problems as a child. And the result is obvious. 17 kilograms - that's how much the thinnest person in the world weighs. More precisely, weighed. The psychotherapist Jan Goland undertook to save the girl from the terrible consequences of anorexia nervosa. He worked with his special patient for free.
Thanks to his efforts, Christina was able to believe in herself, began to eat right, and gained one kilogram. For people with an eating disorder, this is already a huge leap forward. Now Koryagina has big plans for the future, she intends to go to graduate school and defend her Ph.D. thesis. However, so far she is the thinnest woman not only in Russia, but also in the world.
The thinnest men in the world
5. Tom Stanford - weight 65 kg
The Briton, born July 1, 1989, is one of eight people in the world who suffer from MDP syndrome. He has no subcutaneous fat and cannot gain weight. The reason for this rare condition is still a mystery to doctors.
However, this syndrome failed to break Tom's life. He leads a completely normal life, both professional and personal. In 2011, he even became the Paralympic World Cycling Champion.
4. Christian Bale - 55 kg
"But is this the worst person in the world?" - the reader can exclaim with indignation, looking at the photo of the Hollywood handsome man bursting with health. And you take a look at him in the movie "The Machinist". For the role of a person who has not slept for a whole year, one of the most beautiful actors in the world threw off 30 kg. And with a height of 186 cm, it began to weigh 55 kilograms, resembling a walking skeleton. Would you be able to make such sacrifices for the sake of art?
3. Jeremy Gillitzer - weight 30 kg
Jeremy was once a fashion star, with stunning curves and great biceps. But he was unhappy with his weight and decided to lose weight. Usually people are happy when they get rid of a couple of extra pounds. Jeremy wasn’t enough. He took laxatives to make him even thinner, even though he looked like a mummy. Gillitzer has been battling anorexia and bulimia for nearly 25 years.
As a result, his body was so devastated that the man could hardly stand. Jeremy Gillitzer, who won the dubious title of "world's thinnest guy" (if you take people of normal height), died in June 2010 from complications related to an eating disorder.
2. Gul Mohammed - weight 17 kg
In 1957, the most ordinary baby was born in the Indian city of Delhi. It is unlikely that his parents knew such a term as "pituitary dwarfism" (dwarfism), and this is exactly what the condition that Gul Mohammed suffered from. It is rarely diagnosed before the age of three.
Gulya's peers grew up, and the boy himself grew very slowly. By adulthood, his height was only 57 centimeters, which allowed him to get into the Guinness Book of Records as the smallest man in the world... At the age of 40, Mohammed died due to persistent respiratory viral diseases.
1. Chandra Bahadur Dangi - weight 12 kg
In 2015, the shortest man in history died, whose height was 54.6 centimeters, and the weight was 12 kilograms. During his lifetime, a citizen of Nepal, Chandra Bahadur Dangi, suffered from congenital lilliputia, but he led a normal life and made a living by selling jute hats.
Thanks to his title, the man was able to fulfill his dream - to visit other countries, and at the same time popularized his native village all over the world.
It is curious that just as ordinary parents can give birth to dwarf children, so dwarfs can give birth to children with normal growth. It all depends on the cause of dwarfism.
The worst person in the world in the history of mankind
If you believe the Guinness Book of Records, then the person with the lowest weight in the entire history of mankind is Lucia Zarate. This American, originally from Mexico, was born in the 19th century, and at the age of 17 weighed only 2.1 kg. For comparison: the fattest man in history weighed 635 kg.
At the age of 12, Lucia moved with her family to the United States, where she performed as a living curiosity in fairgrounds and circuses. Despite the congenital dwarfism, Lucia was a mentally developed girl, she spoke English and Spanish.
Her finest hour came in Philadelphia, at the Centennial Exposition (celebration of America's 100th anniversary). From that moment on, the girl began to enjoy immense popularity, because in size she was slightly larger than a doll.
After a while, Lucia went to Europe with her family. On February 26, 1881, she performed in Great Britain before Queen Victoria. She continued to travel throughout Europe and the United States, mainly along the East Coast, until 1890.
On January 15, 1890, during the Great Snow Blockade, Lucia was on a train bound for San Francisco, stuck in the snow-capped Sierra Nevada.
I must say that the tiny artist had a special diet, but she ran out of food, and she had to eat canned food that was on the train. Either due to hypothermia (at night in the mountains the temperature dropped to minus 20 degrees), or due to canned food poisoning, but Lucia fell ill. And she died on January 15, 1890, at the age of 26.