Record for world’s largest feet rests with a woman from Texas
Tanya Herbert has always been tall.
Both her parents were tall: Her mother was 6 feet, 5 inches, and her father is 6-foot-4. When Herbert came out of the womb, she was 24 inches long and a little over 12 pounds. The 38year-old is now 6 feet, 9 inches tall.
But last week, instead of people looking up at Herbert, they stared at her feet.
The Houston resident was recently awarded a plaque by Guinness World Records for having the world’s largest feet for a living female.
Herbert’s right foot measures 13.03 inches, and her left foot is 12.79. She wears a women’s size 18 shoe, or a men’s size 16.
“I’m tall and I have big feet,” Herbert said, noting that other than that, she lives a completely normal life.
“I know a lot of tall women who say they hate being tall, but I’ve never felt that way,” Herbert said. “My parents instilled in me a very healthy self-esteem. It’s the way God created me. There’s nothing I can do about it, so why not embrace it?”
Herbert was born in Chicago and raised in Little Rock, Ark. When she was born, her father, David Herbert, said he and his wife found “great humor” in her being such a large baby.
“She was put in with all these other tiny little babies; you could tell that was my kid. She looked 3 years old compared to these 6-pound babies. We thought it was just hilarious,” David Herbert said.
Although she was the tallest girl in school, she played sports only for a year before focusing on academics, despite coaches pressuring her to do otherwise.
She said people always expect that she was bullied for her size, yet “I never remember getting teased or bullied.”
“But I would consider myself a girly girl,” she added.
Faith was never a big part of Herbert’s life until she moved to Houston and met Dr. Dana Carson, founder and senior pastor of Reflections of Christ’s Kingdom World Outreach International. In 2010, she started working full time in the ministry as a video editor.
It wasn’t until last year when Herbert’s mother passed away from cancer that she started documenting her weight loss journey (and trying to find clothes that fit) on social media. She has a goal of losing 250 pounds. When she hit her 100pound milestone, she made a Tiktok of herself getting a pedicure that went viral.
Many commenting on the video suggested she attempt to see if her feet qualify for breaking the world record, and after hearing about it, she submitted her entry in April.
Herbert received her plaque Wednesday. She also learned that she is only a few inches short of being the world’s tallest woman.
When David Herbert found out his daughter broke the world record, he said he was “jazzed and tickled pink.”
“To have a daughter go through all those problems with weight and trying to get it down, and then get a reward for having the biggest feet, it was really exciting, especially for something so silly as feet,” he said.