Zach was born with a rare genetic condition known as Simpson-Golabi-Behmel Syndrome (SGBS), which causes rapid and excessive growth. As an infant, he grew an inch and gained a pound every week.
His parents, lacking the resources to determine why Zach was unlike other babies, decided to appear on Jerry Springer’s show to seek answers, a costly endeavor they couldn’t afford on their own.
Reflecting on those days of notoriety, Zach recalled via The Mirror: “They presented me as different, which only separated me from everyone else. I was known as the kid that was on TV.
“Nowadays people ask what it was like. They assume my mom was chasing fame and that wasn’t the case.
“We just wanted help with geneticists, which wasn’t easy to come by with our insurance.”
He added: “We didn’t really get a lot of take-home pay after all the affairs were done. It was strictly to make sure that her kid was okay.”
Concerns were raised about the well-being of this adorable toddler, who appeared on the show in 1996, weighing as much as a seven-year-old even though he was just one year old.
Standing at 6 feet 5 inches, Zach once weighed 485 pounds at his heaviest. However, during the Covid-19 lockdowns in the United States, he took the opportunity to get in shape, reducing his weight to 200 pounds.
Recently, he has focused on gaining muscle and toning his physique.
In a tweet from May last year, he said: “I’ve like totally matched my fat and muscle pound for pound, I’m built like a goddamn tank now. I’ll post an update eventually.”
Zach made another appearance on the show before the pandemic, where the audience appreciated his humor.
“Nowadays I’m a competitive gamer actually,” he shared.
“That’s just by chance, like yeah, I just played it because I liked it, it’s hard for me to do some things because of my size – I’m a big guy but you know I own that, I’m like the hottest fat guy around.”
Speaking backstage during an interval, his mom remarked to Springer: “I carried him until he was a hundred pounds, now it’s his turn to carry Mama.”