The World's Tallest Children | Our Life

[Music] [Applause] [Music] imagine you're a child a trapped in the body of a giant I know that I'm the only person that has what I have are you good good the length of his body was just getting longer and longer they're the children who Tower above everyone there's a lot of people staring at us and just like carry on near me keep walking they ask me the same thing every day what's the weather out there did your parents feed you Miracle Grow they live in a world that's just too small it seems like these are the longest one they have [Music] Brendan the 13 year old who can't stop growing you want to know what's wrong with my child why is this happening the van nesses super tall children with super-sized appetites I usually have to eat every hour they're just a bottomless pit and Marley is she the tallest girl in the world I think she's taller than this leader these are the stories of some of the most extraordinary young people on the planet the world's tallest children look at that girl she's the tallest girl I've ever seen [Music] [Applause] [Music] Ellensburg USA this ordinary Small Town in Washington state is home to one extraordinary Schoolboy [Music] meet Brendan Adams a 13 year old giant [Music] we've got four and a half inches Brendan is believed to be the tallest child in the world my shoe size is 21 but I have to get it really light because my feet are wider and it's kind of hard because you can't find shoes anywhere pretty much everything in the world is made for normal people and I'm a lot bigger than everybody else Brendan is so tall that his home has had to be custom built so when we moved into our new home here we decided to have taller ceilings and taller doorways so Brendan would be more comfortable because the normal doors like about right here I think the doors are eight feet tall and the ceilings actually might be like they're nine they're nine okay Brendan also needed us longer bed it's kind of funny to see my friends try and get on my bed because I have to run from the door to try and jump up and Mom just stands on the thing it's on [Music] Brendan's height is due to a rare genetic condition which also makes walking extremely painful all right you're gonna go look for your magazine yeah well the ironworker Road Runner Motocross American Rider oversized joints make bending down another painful challenge I don't see anything about RC like three of them but reaching the top shelf is easy okay what's last at 55 inches from the floor Brendan's waist reaches higher than his mother Debbie's shoulders his arms are more than a foot longer than the typical 13 year olds and his huge 10-inch hand span dwarfs that of an average man he just asked does Eric still work here I said I think so are you good good seeing you yeah in our time everybody knows who I am because I'm the only one in the world I guess [Music] when Brendan was born nothing seemed to be unusual he was a normal height and weight seven pounds four ounces and 19 and a quarter inches long and those were totally normal for a newborn but soon his parents noticed something strange the length of his body was just getting longer and longer and we realized that something wasn't right their son was growing at an alarming rate twice as fast as any other kid that I've ever seen in the first 12 months he was already the size of a three-year-old by the age of six he towered 12 inches taller than the other kids and by eight he was the height of a fully grown man it was difficult looking my son directly in the eye when he was eight years old he often got adults talking to him then finally after adult conversations and him not understanding he would look at him and say I'm only eight years old foreign now at 13 years old he's a foot and a half taller than the average American man [Music] the boy who can't stop growing with a life-threatening condition the doctors are struggling to understand [Music] you want an answer you want to know what's wrong with my child why is this happening and nobody can tell you nobody can give you an answer [Music] amongst her friends 11 year old schoolgirl Naomi Van Ness can't help standing out I'm the tallest in my year including all the boys in my ear and tour list at five foot nine inches tall she's Head and Shoulders above her age group at school Naomi's remarkable but at home she's very ordinary meet the Van Ness family from Dorset who can claim to be the tallest family in Britain mom and dad are Miriam and Frank she is nearly six foot and he's a whopping six foot ten and a half my grandparents were tall my parents weren't that tall but it was pretty obvious that uh uh Miriam and I were going to have tall kids [Music] good as me the eldest child is Vincent still 610. [Music] steam he stands an immense six foot ten oh sorry am I pushing you over there's a bit of competitiveness between um I think me and Dad because I'm actually really starting to gain with him now I don't believe it you can measure yourself fifteen-year-old Lucas is not far behind that's six eight it'd be funny if one of us grew dad he's six foot eight and still growing rapidly just 13 and already six foot one there's Franklin well no one at my school already looks down at me today the family are off shopping in what to most people would be a very large car it's really uncomfortable because there's three people with six foot and above you know all sat in one row in the car as everyone's just like squished in [Music] when we're out as a family there's a lot of people staring at us and I'm just like carry on near me keep walking [Music] everybody will look at us pretty much yes people notice you and if you want to be noticed that's great there are some people going [Music] to be noticed that's not so positive they make comments about us how tall are you what's the weather out there one kid said um did your parents feed you Miracle Grow I've nearly snapped once or twice [Music] only at home can they feel normal but if you're Britain's tallest family how do you find a big enough house we designed a house ourselves with the help of an architect and at that time our kids were nearing the age of 10 and we could already see that they're becoming tall and so when we designed the house we had to take into account their potential size we somewhat designed the house bigger then the council had anticipated and when we submitted the final drawings to them they were shocked [Music] this is the the boys bathroom we've raced the toilet by four inch just to make it a a better sit I suppose so we're in the kitchen kitchen's adapted as well we've made the work surfaces taller normal uh kitchens are about four inch lower but in order to preserve our bucks we've made it higher also we've made the cupboards higher when we have short visitors they struggle to get hold of the glasses even our Windows have to be higher because otherwise we wouldn't be able to look out well the doors are slightly too short for us I suppose we put standard size doors in because when we enter other people's homes we are just used to ducking and if we had higher doors then we would not duck and then there would be severe damage to the upper Department [Music] at Heathrow Airport Craig glenday is about to travel 6 000 miles to meet a remarkable young person we've been hearing rumors and Whispers coming out of Thailand of our teenage girl it could be the world's tallest girl in fact the tallest is very important for us as a category Craig is the editor of Guinness World Records he's measured the tallest and the shortest people on the planet [Music] in order to be totally Assurance for me to go in person and see for myself that she really is as tall as she claims to be [Music] Craig is heading for Thailand where the average height of a woman is less than five foot two [Music] but seventeen-year-old Marley duandi stands Head and Shoulders above everyone in her Village including her own father [Music] when I was four years old I was very tall I was as big as a seven-year-old [Music] I noticed that I had to have new shoes almost every month so I realized I was growing faster than the other children lower that lower the growth got faster and faster by the age of 10 she'd reached six foot and by 12 at 6'3 Miley was nearly a foot taller than her dad by 16 she was over six foot eight and still growing [Music] and in a nation where five foot eight is tall Molly struggled to fit in [Music] online when she walked down the street many people called her a giant and laughed at her so many times I ask myself why I sit in front of the mirror and cry and ask why do I have a big body why am I not the same as other people [Music] you know even a brother was embarrassed by having such an enormous sister and then when it came to school well I only had a small motorbike for transport so in the end we decided to keep her at home Molly's education didn't begin until she was almost a teenager so today she finds herself in a class with children at least six years younger and two and a half feet shorter holiday s at first the kids called me a giant and didn't play with me but now it's so much better because they've grown to like me [Music] most people breaking records is all about getting your name in the famous book but for Mali the fame and hopefully Fortune could be a matter of life or death [Music] her enormous height is due to a tumor on the pituitary gland just behind her eyes the tumor causes the gland to produce too much growth hormone Somali keeps getting taller eventually my head was touching the roof and my house felt like it was just too small there were two attempts to remove the tumor with surgery but each time it grew back now Marley must take tablets to try and block the excess growth hormone foreign hope though is shots of a powerful but hugely expensive tumor-shrinking drug which her father a poorly paid laborer can't afford [Music] if it becomes known that she's the tallest girl in the world there's a chance that it might help the family situation [Music] so now Molly must travel 300 miles to Bangkok there she'll meet Craig and find out if she is the tallest girl in the world [Music] [Applause] playing on a Village Green just outside Bristol Angelique Cooper doesn't stand out too much from the other kids until you know her age when I was first at school my teachers were saying oh you're really tall you really took when I got back and was like am I although only just eight Angelique is already the height of a ten-year-old and that's something that happens to only one in a hundred children I'm quite a lot taller than my friends because they're quite small Angelique is the tallest girl in our class I'm also taller than all the boys in my ear and all the year four boys being the tallest in your class is just pretty cool Angelique inherited her height from her dad Nick who's six foot nine he's worried that if his daughter keeps on growing she'll be picked on for a hike like he was [Music] when I was younger I was always you know considerably taller than everybody else at school I was bullied by certain individuals and I just never really stuck up for myself I think in this old man mindset of a bully if you can actually pick on the biggest and succeed then it's you're sort of moved up the pack in order so as to speak I am once when I was in the playground they just started calling us and we told them to be quiet and go away but they didn't make it fully worse and go [Music] since the day she was born Angelique has been above average height Nick has been charting her growth hoping to predict how tall she will be as an adult looking at the book if you follow the top line which is what Angelique is following she's actually above the line when you get to the full adult height it predicts usually one meter 80 which I think is about five feet 11 inches tall but it says NB this calculation is not appropriate if either parent is not of normal stature and they've put on their dad is six foot nine if we could get a more accurate prediction to find out how tall she would be then that would sort of clear up a lot of doubt and it would be very good [Music] balamori Georgie likes balamori today they're off to see an expert on growth who'll try to make an accurate prediction of her adult height the task showed that Angelique is going to be exceptionally tall eyes six or five six foot six I think that will be very difficult for her because people would stop and stare at her I would like to be taller than my dad because Dash is going over the limit [Music] oh the battery just went dead kidding me thirteen-year-old Brendan Adams the world's tallest child has no choice but to stand out but what he really wants is to be one of the boys yeah [Music] I like to do everything everybody else does I like to do the same things my friends do and this kind of fit in um maybe when they leave in later I have a hard time believing that someone wouldn't like Brennan he likes to make sure that everybody else is happy he's got a really good personality and he likes to talk to anybody he's not a shy person on the inside I take everything normal and try to do everything normal as possible but I know that I am a little different Brendan's coping with life now but what about the future [Music] quiet your sisters will be here first and then yours when Brendan's height was projected to top a life-threatening eight-foot the race was on for doctors to diagnose the cause it was frustrating because the doctors couldn't tell us what was going on because they didn't know what was going on I tried to do that online and I couldn't find it his condition was so unique doctors had to do genetic research on rats to understand it during fetal development every 12th chromosome of Brendan's cells had become detached then reattached the wrong way round this genetic mutation caused his extreme growth it was a first in medical science in the entire world I know that I'm the only person that has what I have and there's nobody else ever I want to see someone jump those jumps before today is over the condition also caused other physical problems such as swollen eyelids and enlarged joints so like I can't run very fast because my knees are larger and I can't make FS because my Knuckles are bigger I see him struggling every day I've never had to deal with that and I have no idea what goes through his mind every day but he doesn't complain so I don't ask as Mom it's extremely hard to know that your child is hurting and that they just carry on and you just continue to watch them and you let them do what they want to do I think my mom worries a little bit because she doesn't want me to be hurting but to me it's just normal [Music] although doctors have managed to slow Brendan's growth with hormones they haven't stopped it altogether and admit they have no idea how his condition will develop in the future we do live day to day every day with Brendan is important I don't really know what my future holds I'm just gonna go with what I have and keep on doing what I'm doing [Music] mavadine Anderson from Jamaica is a healthy 15 year old who's naturally tall at six foot nine and a half inches good morning at age six I was slow then everybody in my class and at grade five when I was 10 I was taller than all the teachers and I was taller than the principal [Music] at school I have my own desk because the normal ones my legs cannot fit into them [Music] they tease me a lot they call the baby giant Marvel Dean's older sister Kimberly might look small next to her but even she's six foot four if me and my sister go out they would call us twin tower we know if we go straight it feels very strange at times because they're like who is the older one and I would say me because the water is so short hello yeah yeah I mostly have boyfriends I don't really have girlfriends so they are the ones where I talk to about everything yeah and he's older than I am yeah [Laughter] the rudest thing that somebody ever said to me about my height is that I'm not going to be able to find a husband it is hurtful it is very hurtful until no I understand that people don't love you for what you have or what you don't have they love you for who you are [Music] let me look at extra large in this one 1920. like any teenager marvadene is fussy about what to wear [Music] but with 38 inch arms reaching 10 inches more than average [Music] two inch legs that are over a foot longer than most adults clothes shopping is a nightmare how about this one let me see if I can get a size 1920. I don't really like shopping for clothes because it's too much embarrassment okay it seems like these are the longest one they have [Music] this is no ordinary shopping expedition Marvel Dean is getting ready for the trip of a lifetime sorry I bought that one I'm going to England tomorrow it means a lot to me because I'm going to get to see my father I haven't seen for eight years Garrett saw his daughters marvadene was only seven years old and two and a half feet shorter I've waited long time for this you know I mean I've been waiting a long time so now I get the time to Sierra I'll be happy upstairs [Music] me and my Dad we're very close because he called almost every day [Music] is that I'm six feet too I see a joke in that I'm six feet four you know I mean so she's just telling me or she going flag wow well I don't know how tall I was the last time I saw him but uh I reached him above a little above his waist [Music] I think he is going to be looking up on me now it's going to feel very funny [Music] thank you foreign [Music] there is a girl who may be even taller than marveody it's the job of Craig glenday from Guinness World Records to find out if 17 year old Marley duandi is the tallest girl in the world [Music] is that we'll measure Mali three times because over the day she may become shorter and will take the average measurement of the three and then hopefully we'll have a new Guinness world record of the new tallest girl okay fingers crossed [Music] for Mali there's a lot more riding on this than getting her name in the record books [Music] the fame of being the tallest girl could pay for the tumor shrinking drugs that might save her life [Music] [Music] I think she's taller than this leader yeah and this this can't come off can it this thing uh no no because there's a fixed here the maximum fix yeah yeah we need a flat wall I think yeah [Music] this is Judgment Day for Mali issues to claim the record she'll have to be taller than her nearest known rival marvadine in Jamaica who's six foot nine and a half it's very important step for her because it's the beginning of what could be a change of her life completely just there's some relative obscurity I guess now um within a few months she could be world famous more importantly though it just kind of draws attention to mali's problems as it were they they have a real need for medicine and that will hopefully make a big difference in their life sorry six foot ten is it ten right okay we've just done the first measurement um six foot ten which is very impressive for for a teenage girl come back in a few hours and do some more [Music] she's beaten Marvin by half an inch but only for now because people commonly shrink during the course of the day Craig will measure her again later and calculate the average there's time for Mali to take a stroll in the streets of Bangkok where she's a true Giant in a small world more than 18 inches taller than the average Thai adult I'm very happy I've been getting so much attention today [Music] foreign [Music] of the day and we'll decide okay once again six foot ten 208 centimeters so there goes the fee that you shrink in the day and she hasn't moved and that for us is a new Guinness World Record congratulations foreign [Music] [Applause] I'm very excited and very happy to have this recognition as the tallest girl [Music] we shouldn't hit home I think and when she goes back to the home back to her school and people realize that she is this shouldn't give you a very famous person [Applause] [Music] this hopefully for Maya is the start of a big change just had trouble evalued with the height for the first 17 years now it's something to celebrate it's a great thing [Music] [Music] in the UK six foot nine Nick Cooper is on a quest to find out if his rapidly growing daughter Angelique is going to end up abnormally tall Nick hi hello tell me why you're concerned about launch League um she comes from a very tall family certainly on my side and uh which is Professor Noel Cameron is an expert on human growth parents want some degree of reassurance they want to predict what's going to happen at a later Point what they're gonna have to deal with at a later point we call a high social economic status or well-off session the usual technique of predicting growth with a chart can be misleading but Professor Cameron has a more accurate approach let's let's go in here into the X-ray room and uh here we're going to take an x-ray of your of your hand and wrist this is precious he's gonna he's a radiographer so if you could just pop your hand over there for me the professor will use an x-ray of angelique's hand to gauge how mature her bones are the more mature they are the less they are due to grow [Music] Professor Cameron studies the bones in angelique's hand and Compares them to a set of Benchmark photographs for her age angelique's in the tallest one percent in the country she's about to find out what the future might hold I would like to be about same height as my dad if it happens [Music] okay Angelique so now I've assessed all the bones in your hand and wrist and I've determined that your skeletal matured in other words your bone age is about four months in advance of your chronological age so your height is not really like that of an eight-year-old it's like that over the girl who's about four months older than you are right now now knowing that information gives me a predicted adult height for you of 173.8 centimeters which in odd terms means about five foot eight and a half all right so not dramatically tall and that's our best guess if you will given the information we've got all right it's got the best of both worlds down I'm quite happy for it to be fair I mean she's not going to be exceptionally tall as I always was her whole future is going to be good and I'm very happy I'm just normal I'm a normal kid if I'm over average then that's I'm still me the van nesses from Dorset are surely Britain's tallest family [Music] dad Frank originally from Holland is six foot ten and the four children are catching up fast [Music] in fact there's nothing small about the van nesses including their appetites and shopping for food is a mammoth task serious quite a few boxes yeah [Music] bananas a lot of the time we are quite hungry especially events potatoes I usually have to eat every hour at least [Music] but I can't sleep when I'm hungry though so I have to eat a lot before I go to bed pasta [Music] the rest of my life I just eat so not in the west side like that or anything we do other stuff as well snacks for school Vince alone can devour up to five and a half thousand calories a day more than twice a typical adult they have three big meals a day chocolate lots more fruits more bananas but in between they would be eating cereals eggs yogurt they would be eating six meals a day probably they're just a bottomless pit the weekly shopping bill is crippling the shopping Bill amounts to about 250 pounds something like that I need this kind of amount of food twice a week and um because we go through it so quickly once you've fed your children the next challenge is to clothe them and here's some jeans and um they're quite long as you can see it was a constant battle keeping up with their growth spurt basically because they were growing out of their trousers out of their tops out of their shoes and every three months we were having to reinvest in taller clothes it's hard it's hard to find clothes which and because like there's not very many people who are the same height as me and 11. people are saying how expensive the school uniforms are and I think oh you should see our bill for school uniforms we paid 200 pounds for a school uniform whereas most people probably pay 40 pounds for a school uniform to keep their children out I think the the total expense of clothing our family is is so great that we found it quite difficult to go on on your holiday so yeah it's been a sacrifice but they're worth it [Music] you go again food preparation major thing in the Van Ness households foreign but the real secret of happiness for the van nesses is the family bond boys really good that Mum and Dad are both tall because they could be quite supportive because they've gone through probably the same stuff there is secure numbers and being a tall family it's like a Band of Brothers look we we have to do with the leftovers three and a half beans and none for me we are a very close family and it helps us a lot [Music] at just 15 years old marvadene Anderson stands over six foot nine she and her sister Kimberly have traveled from their Jamaican home for a reunion with their father Garrett and extended family in a cold damp Manchester oh yeah so it feels a little bit weird because I don't know the emotion that is going to take over can't wait to see them now it is a big deal for him because he left when we were babies actually you know we're so big she's not even looked like she was gonna be a tall a tall girl after I left then she started to Growing Garrett six foot five himself is about to get a big surprise oh yeah daddy oh God I can't believe oh after this it's like a step [Music] I can't believe oh my goodness I feel like a dwarf now welcome welcome to my home okay welcome that's my friend the time to Lillian Elise the four generations of relatives knew marvadene was tall but seeing her in the flesh is a whole new experience oh my gosh [Laughter] I don't think I like being short no because when you're totally get plenty of attention if I was five feet five then I would think I'll be recognized by anybody at all I'll just be a normal 15 year old well welcome to Great Britain [Music] Molly will have to wait until September for the new edition of the Guinness World Records before she finds out whether Fame will bring Fortune [Music] all I want is for my daughter to be cured and it seems that finally some help might start to come [Music] and there's good news for Brendan he's only grown an inch in the last year what the doctors have done up until now seems to be working and we hope that this is the end of his growth [Music] and I know he wants to go to school to work on cars but other than that it's hard to say what Brandon's future is going to bring [Music] mavadine on the other hand isn't bothered about growing a couple more inches after Making Waves playing netball for Jamaica she's been offered a scholarship to play college basketball in America I just love my height it's just it's just nice and [Music]

Channel: Our Life

Views: 784,744

Keywords: our life, documentary, world documentary, documentary channel, award winning, life stories, best documentaries, daily life, real world, point of view, story, full documentary, documentaries, real life, tallest children, worlds tallest children, tallest people, tallest men, tallest women, tallest man ever, tallest man in history, tallest man on earth, tallest girl, tallest person ever, superhuman, super tall, tallest family

Id: yAd37FafiZ0

Length: 43min 49sec (2629 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 07 2022