A quarter of the more than 74,000 Mexicans who have died after catching the virus were overweight.
A Mexican who was once the world’s heaviest man has beaten the coronavirus, helped — he believes — by several years of dieting, exercise and stomach-reduction surgery that saw him shed hundreds of kilos.
Juan Pedro Franco used to weigh 595 kilos (1,310 pounds) — more than the average male polar bear and enough to be certified by Guinness World Records in 2017.
The 36-year-old now weighs around 208 kilos, but his history of diabetes, high blood pressure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease made his battle against the virus particularly gruelling.
“It’s a very aggressive disease. I had a headache, body ache, breathing difficulty, a fever. I was a very high-risk person,” Franco told AFP from his home in the central state of Aguascalientes.
Mexico, which has the world’s…