You probably know the meanings of the words workaholic and alcoholic.
What do you think a foodaholic is? Walter Hudson was one. How much do you weigh? Walter Hudson weighed more, much more. This is his obituary.
WALTER HUDSON, who has died at Hempstead, New York, age 46, was once listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the heaviest man on earth.
About 183 cm tall and 274 around, with cherubic features set off by pigtails braided in the Cherokee style, he long devoted himself to the pleasures of the table. Four years ago, Hudson-then tipping the industrial scales at his top weight of 540 kg - gained worldwide notoriety (as "Whopping Walter") when he became stuck in his bedroom door. He was wedged there for some four hours. It took eight firemen to free him.
Walter Hudson was born at Brooklyn in 1945 and, as he recalled, "began gorging at the age of six." At 15 he was so obese his legs collapsed underneath him and he was confined to bed.
Indeed, except for the time when his family moved to Hempstead in 1970 and he was transported by motor-car (his then 266 kg broke the seat,) he remained inside. "I'm just a foodaholic," he once confessed, "I have no excuse."
Hudson's eating habits were fueled by food brought in by members of his family. He would generally start his day with a breakfast of two pounds of bacon, 32 sausages, a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, jam and coffee.
For lunch, Hudson favored four enormous bowls of rice, four double cheese-burgers, eight boxes of fried potatoes, six pies, and six large bottles of coca-cola.
For dinner he would eat six roasted corns, half-a-dozen yams, and another six or seven baked potatoes, ending with a whole apple pie. Between these main meals, he would eat a chicken or two, followed by noodles, string beans, six large bottles of soda, not to mention colossal sandwiches, and copious amounts of ice-cream.
"All I cared about," he recalled, "was food, FOOD!"
When not eating and sleeping he would watch television, listen to tapes and read the Bible-he had a particular penchant for the psalms and was apt to recite Psalm "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills…"
Hudson, though, was advised against sitting up for longer than five minutes because of the risk of being smothered by flab. The only exercise he engaged in was when he attended to his ablutions; it took him an hour to negotiate the six yards to the bathroom from his bedroom. Then in 1987, he found himself wedged in the door-way. "The day I got stuck in that door," he recalled, "that when the Lord got me the help I needed." The help to which he referred was offered by Dick Gregory, a comedian who masterminded the Slim Safe Diet Scheme.
"We think what might have happened," said Gregory about his new client, "is that in 27 years of lying around he might, because of the reading of his Bible, have taken on the same characteristics as Buddhist monks - slowed down the biological processes. But we don't know."
Gregory placed Hudson on a 1,200 calorie-a-day diet of raw fruit and orange juice. For exercise he was advised to lie in bed waving his arms about like a conductor.
Hudson's eating habits were fueled by food brought in by members of his family. He would generally start his day with a breakfast of two pounds of bacon, 32 sausages, a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, jam and coffee.
For lunch, Hudson favored four enormous bowls of rice, four double cheese-burgers, eight boxes of fried potatoes, six pies, and six large bottles of coca-cola.
For dinner he would eat six roasted corns, half-a-dozen yams, and another six or seven baked potatoes, ending with a whole apple pie. Between these main meals, he would eat a chicken or two, followed by noodles, string beans, six large bottles of soda, not to mention colossal sandwiches, and copious amounts of ice-cream.
"All I cared about," he recalled, "was food, FOOD!"
When not eating and sleeping he would watch television, listen to tapes and read the Bible-he had a particular penchant for the psalms and was apt to recite Psalm "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills…"
Hudson, though, was advised against sitting up for longer than five minutes because of the risk of being smothered by flab. The only exercise he engaged in was when he attended to his ablutions; it took him an hour to negotiate the six yards to the bathroom from his bedroom. Then in 1987, he found himself wedged in the door-way. "The day I got stuck in that door," he recalled, "that when the Lord got me the help I needed." The help to which he referred was offered by Dick Gregory, a comedian who masterminded the Slim Safe Diet Scheme.
"We think what might have happened," said Gregory about his new client, "is that in 27 years of lying around he might, because of the reading of his Bible, have taken on the same characteristics as Buddhist monks - slowed down the biological processes. But we don't know."
Gregory placed Hudson on a 1,200 calorie-a-day diet of raw fruit and orange juice. For exercise he was advised to lie in bed waving his arms about like a conductor.
Hudson soon lost some four inches off his knees, and within three months had shed 178 kg. It began to look as if he might fulfill such ambitions as visiting his mother's grave, riding on the New York subway, driving into the country-and even flying to a clinic in the Bahamas, from which he envisaged emerging as a sylph of 13 stones.
But it was not to be. At the time of his death, of an apparent heart attack, Hudson reportedly weighed 508 kg. Rescue workers had to cut a large hole in the wall of his bedroom to remove the body. He was unmarried.
