The World’s Largest Foot Ever Recorded

Feet are good for walkin’, but they’re all quite unique when you get down into the details! Some people have little feet, and some have big feet, but generally, everyone fits into a somewhat typical range. Well… almost everyone. Today, we are going to take a look at the largest foot in the world. This foot belongs to a man who also is the record holder for the largest shoe size in the world! Let’s get started.

The Largest Foot Ever Recorded

The largest foot ever recorded belongs to a man named Robert Wadlow. Wadlow is one of the most famous tall people who ever lived. He stood at 8 feet and 11 inches tall. His shoe size was 37AA, and each foot measured 1.54 feet long.

Wadlow lived from 1918 to 1940 and went by many nicknames, including the Alton Giant and the Giant of Illinois. He is generally regarded as the tallest person in human history, a record that ultimately became his downfall. Wadlow’s height was caused by an enlarged pituitary gland, causing his body to release humane growth hormone at record levels. Wadlow grew his entire life, eventually reaching his maximum at 22 years old when he died. At that point, he weighed 439 lbs and was 8 feet 11.1 inches tall.

Unfortunately, Wadlow’s height caused him a lot of problems. Throughout most of his life, Wadlow required leg braces, couldn’t feel his legs or feet, and struggled with various tasks. Still, it’s recorded that Wadlow was incredibly strong even up to his final days.

To make a living, he originally toured with the Ringling Brothers Circus, although he refused to demean himself by wearing the costumes provided to him. After leaving the circus, he did promotional tours for the International Shoe Company, where he was paid for and given custom shoes free of charge. While on tour, Wadlow got a blister on his ankle from one of his braces that eventually got infected. After an attempted blood transfusion and emergency surgery, he died as a complication of his autoimmune disease, making it harder for his body to fight the infection.

The Largest Foot

The man with the largest foot currently alive is Jeison Orlando Rodríguez Hernández. Hernández is a 26-year-old from Venezuela known for his size 26 feet! In measurements, Hernández’s left and right feet are 1.33 and 1.32 feet long, rather astonishing figures!

For reference, most shoe brands (for men) go up to around 13 or 14, meaning that Hernándezs’ feet are literally twice as big as the biggest shoes offered by most shoe brands. Shopping for shoes is incredibly tough for him, but it is made a lot easier with help from Georg Wessel, a shoemaker who helps design custom shoes for tall people worldwide!

Hernández currently holds the Guinness World Record for his feet, even though he isn’t the largest in history. Although he is famous for his gargantuan feet, he has a normal life. As you can imagine, he is an avid basketball player. Big feet don’t give you an inherent advantage in the sport, but usually, people with big feet are also pretty tall, which is most definitely an advantage. For reference, the King, Lebron James, has size 15 shoes.

The Biggest Feet in the Animal Kingdom

Humans aren’t the only creatures in the world with big feet! Some rather big-footed animals can put even Hernández and Wadlow to shame.

Some of the biggest feet in the animal kingdom belong to none other than the kangaroo! With how far and fast these creatures can hop, it’s no wonder that they need some big feet to enable them. In fact, kangaroos are a part of the Macropod family, meaning “big feet” in Latin. When a predator is around, kangaroos slap the ground with their feet, warning other kangaroos in the area of danger. If you’ve ever seen Bambi and remember Thumper, you get the idea!

Maybe the biggest feet of them all belong to elephants. As the largest land animals in the world, it makes sense that they would also have the largest feet in the world. Despite their huge foot size, elephant feet are actually quite sensitive. Elephants are known to communicate with one another through their feet by detecting faint underground signals up to 20 miles away. Humans can’t see 20 miles away, let alone feel another human walking just as far.

The photo featured at the top of this post is © Igor Shoshin/Shutterstock.com