History of BBWorld Part III

Throughout history there have been many claimants to the title of “world’s heaviest woman” (subsequently abbreviated as WHW); due to this being essentially the exclusive domain of the highest-ranking women in royalty, this would sometimes arise as a point of contention among neighboring states, as the one with the fatter figurehead could generally lay claim to superiority in the areas of wealth and prosperity. As such, states were incentivized to exaggerate the size of their most prominent woman, making it difficult to verify from a modern perspective which claims were true. However, internal records from these states were typically mandated to be accurate for purposes of enforcing the previously mentioned class-based weight tiers; as such, only those records with a strong likelihood of veracity (as determined by modern historians) will be presented here.

Though arbitrarily derived from the modern “imperial” system of measurement, a good starting point based on modern societal standards for fatness would be the first woman to verifiably cross the 300-lb mark. That honor goes to Nefertiti, who in 1338 BC was recorded to peak at approximately 302 lbs (though due to the imprecision of current knowledge of ancient Egyptian units of measurement, an earlier consort, Tiye, may have crossed the mark 15 years earlier- or simply stopped short at 299 lbs). The long stretch of time before a woman would cross the 400-lb mark, however, encompassed many potential claimants to the title of WHW. For a few centuries this honor would generally oscillate between consorts of the Egyptian pharaohs and those of the dynastic rulers of China (though of course they had no contemporary knowledge of each other); for some time between 600-400 BC, though, the title would shift to the consorts of the Achaemenid empire (beginning with Cassandane, wife of Cyrus the Great, and ending with Amestris, wife of Xerxes I). The title would continue to shift rapidly between Nubia, the Maurya Empire, and back to China, with some of the concubines of Qin Shi Huang approaching the 350-lb mark, though none would surpass it.

Famously, the first woman to reach that milestone was Cleopatra, the queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt who in 32 BC clocked in at 353 lbs. Though she is perhaps one of the most well-known historical claimants to the WHW title (as well as a notable early female ruler who merged the “figurehead” role with that of actual power successfully and without compromise), many are not aware that she was fairly quickly overtaken by Amanitore, queen of the Kushitic Kingdom, who in 20 AD was recorded as being approximately 358 lbs. After a fairly calm century, the title again began its rapid transfer from civilization to civilization as incremental gains continued to be achieved. Interestingly, though, an unexpected contender would set a new record in 710 AD which would stand for an even more unexpectedly long time. This of course references Lady Six Sky, the Maya queen of Naranjo who introduced the Americas to the record books with her recorded weight of approximately 391 lbs, a full 8 pounds clear of the previous contender. Though the civilizations of the Americas (most notably the Maya and Aztecs) occasionally recorded women of notable size, Lady Six Sky would be the heaviest known resident of the Americas until the 1500s and would hold the title of WHW for over four centuries.

To some degree, the slowdown in the competition for WHW correlated with the era known as post-classical history, lasting from the 500s to the 1500s. The medieval period in Europe and west Asia was marked with a return to greater struggle as a result of plague, Mongol invasions, and the like; although cultural and technological advancements continued to be made in the rest of the world, there seemed to be a general disinterest in achieving significant fatness during this time period. This is not to say there weren’t outliers to this case; Eleanor of Aquitaine would surpass Lady Six Sky’s record in 1158, tipping the scales at nearly 393 lbs at her peak. Records of this period also confirm that the class-based weight tier system continued to be employed in most areas, though deviations in standards were becoming more prominent due to local conditions (health of the populace, etc.) or differing cultural norms. In Eleanor’s case, though, there were still many similarities to the ancient systems; women of high nobility were expected to exceed 300 lbs, women in lower-tier nobility (generally, lords within the feudal system) could range from 200-300 lbs, and commoners could not exceed 200 lbs. The latter point was sometimes invoked as a legal standpoint to indicate that a vassal was feeding his wife an excess of crop yield instead of delivering it to the lord as per their feudal agreement, but in practice this threshold was rarely approached due to the general malnourishment and disease-affliction of the peasantry.

Regardless, although the title of WHW would shift a couple more times in the coming centuries (notably to Dyah Gitarja of Majapahit in 1348 at approximately 397 lbs and Jadwiga of Poland in 1399 at approximately 398 lbs) and the class-based weight tiers would continue to persist, both constructions of the feminine beauty ideal would soon see revolution beginning near the start of the 1500s.