Ooh that’s good to know. I’ve always wondered why I’ve never been a runner or wished I could run or enjoyed running whatsoever (except around the bases!)
Aside from my massive frame I also have a long torso and stubby legs.
Anyone want to make out? 
People who undergo gastric bypass surgery and lose a lot of weight, are expected to have some bone calcium loss, and are monitored for bone density loss. Skeletons of obese persons have been proven to become stronger, denser (but I don’t know about bigger) to support the weight of obese people.
I’m another short leg, big torso, oversized dwarf. I’m 6’, 29" inseam, and I’m also wide. I need a size 50 jacket to get over my shoulders. Sitting down I seem really tall. I’m really impressive on a bar stool. Big bones will support bigger muscles, which will also hold more fat for some types, or provide more surface area for fat in others. So the bones may not add much weight, but they do leave an open door for weight problems to arise.
This was my (unspoken) hypothesis in post #3. Is there a quantifier for “stronger” “denser” that translates into weight?
Well, if I understand the question, sure. And IIRC osteoporosis is less common among obese people, because their bones are denser.
Regards,
Shodan
Has anyone tried weighing their bones yet?
You know, for science.
And we eat a lot of ice cream!
Recently I have been seeing studies that suggest that increased levels of circulating insulin cause increased bone size and density. This effect starts in the womb, with fat and/or diabetic mothers giving birth to babies and children with larger bones on average, who are themselves more likely to be fat/diabetic as adults. Taking the maternal environment out of the equation, children of normal weight with larger wrists have been found to be more likely to be obese, diabetic, etc as adults.
So that’s a kind of support for the idea that ‘fat people have bigger bones!’, I guess.
There are pretty big differences among people at a skeletal level, though I think it’s silly to try to measure ‘frame size’ by only one or two bony landmarks. But if there are small bones (like mine), there are definitely big ones.
Great for powerlifting or Olympic weightlifting.
I’ve got ape arms and relatively long legs, which limited me in gymnastics when I started growing. Now, it means I ding my shins a lot when doing Oly lifting or deadlifts. Good for rock climbing, though.
As far as the OP, a professional might be able to assess a skeleton for markers and make a good guess at overall body mass, height, kinds of stress the person subjected themselves to, but a normal person probably wouldn’t be able to tell much of anything without being told what to look for. Are some people bigger-boned? Of course. They’re also going to weigh more for the same body fat and muscle mass. The “big boned” statement is usually just a defensive face-saving statement for being fat, though.
Army does. At my height of 6-1, im supposed to be 195 lbs. max. I weigh 260. Needless to say, I have to get taped at every PT test.
… ETA Dseids’ post contains better info.
And: that bone density article on Wikipedia blacking out made me glad wikipedia is only out for one day.
Obesity actually is considered somewhat protective against osteoporosis - whether it’s the estrogen that can be secreted by some fat cells, or the fact that every step an obese person takes is a weight-bearing exercise, or both, I’m not sure.
So yeah, at a WAG, I’d guess that if you skinned me (both big-boned AND fat), and skinned someone of the same height and bone shape who was NOT carrying (mumble-mumble) extra 10s of pounds, my bones might look a little denser.
That’s different from the person that eclectic wench described, where there was a definite difference in width of ribcage, shoulders etc.
I’d bet that at a glance, if someone were to be briefly shown both eclectic wench and her friend, then asked “which one of them is overweight?”, the person would answer “eclectic wench, of course!”.
When I was 18, I participated in a bone density study that a local radiologist was doing - the MRI of my hip showed that my bone density was almost 2 standard deviations above normal. I don’t know that my frame is actually any bigger (wider, etc.) than an average woman my height (5 foot 8), but even if someday I get skinny, I’ll never be light.
If there was no such thing as differently sized bones, surely every woman of any given height would have the same sized feet as every other woman of that same height? Ditto for men, of course.