My title is my question - and I really do want to know. Do they actually believe this? I think it’s fair to ask.
If this sort of question is considered offensive on the boards, feel free to censor. I am rather new.
Surely it’s possible to be both obese (in terms of fat percentage) and big-boned? In fact, I wonder if being overweight all your life would actually lead to bigger bones and whether any research has been done in that area.
I think that men will make the same excuse. That said, a buddy from college who has weighed a lot more than me has a skeleton that is probably 30% wider and carries a lot more weight intrinsically. People have declared the big-boned clause, and in this particular case, yeah, his bones are way bigger than mine.
I don’t think any one can make a blanket statement about what most obese women truly believe.
Given that, a few points I would make are:[ul]
[li]I’ve never personally heard any women I know actually use the phrase “big boned” as an actual (non-joke) statement referring to themself - it’s more of a cultural joke (e.g. Cartman from South Park.)[/li][li]I agree with sandra_nz that fat vs. big-boned is a false dichotomy - it’s possible to be both. [/li][li]Being overweight protects against osteoporosis (cite), so heavy people are less likely to have thin, fragile skeletons.[/li][li]I admit that I am fat (BMI 41.6), but I do believe that (objectively speaking) I also have a large “frame” (skeleton). For example, this website shows how to calculate your frame size by measuring your wrist or elbow. My elbow width is 8cm, which being female and 5’5" tall it says I have a large frame. [/li][*]By contrast, my mother is almost the same size as me (wears the same size clothing, but is shorter and weighs slightly less), and she freely admits she has a small frame size.[/ul]
I’ve never heard large people refer to themselves as big-boned. In my experience, other people say that to them to make them feel better . “Oh, you’re just big-boned.”
I think I’m big-boned - my hands and feet are huuuuge. I’ll also never be a size 6. I think my skeleton does add a lot to my weight.
I also think (know) that on top of that I am really fat. I think that adds a lot to my weight AND my size (much more than my skeleton ever could).
I don’t get the two confused at all.
This is what I came in to say. My SIL and I are both the same height, but her frame is considerably smaller than mine. For example: when she got married, she weighed 109 pounds. She looked very nice. At that weight, I would be skeletal. I looked very slender and healthy at 135 pounds, a weight I left far behind ages ago.
So yes, I am far too heavy, but I am also large-boned.
Yup, big-boned here, with a doctor’s note to prove it. In the late anorexic '70’s, I had a severe attack of gastroenteritis that eventually resulted in me dropping to 116 lbs (I was 5’3" and 15 years old at the time). At that weight, with my build, my doctor was concerned that I was becoming dangerously underweight, although I was still “fat” compared my peers. He recommended (seconded by another doctor some years later) that I should aim for 125-135 to be healthy.
Looking back at pictures of myself at even 140 lbs at 5’5", I looked quite slender. I’m about 25 lbs over that now, so while not quite obese, I’m certainly both overweight and big boned. Like ZipperJJ, my hands and feet are large, my shoulders and hips broad, and my head is pretty damned big, but it’s all in proportion. My sister and mother are both slender-boned, but about the same weight as I am, and we really do carry it very differently.
When a person eats ground beef, the occasional chips of undigested bone will collect in a pellet in the person’s stomach. Given big enough volume of consumption (say five or ten burgers a day over a ten year period), the pellet of undigested bone will become very bigl. When you see a pot bellied person waddling along, it is a huge ball of undigested bone that is distending their gut. Thus they are big boned, and it is the multi-national fast food chains’ fault. To confirm this, go up to a pot bellied person in a fast food joint and poke his or her tummy.
This is something I’ve wondered about a coworker, though: is it really the bones that make her broader? Mary has much broader shoulders and hips than I do, and she weighs within 20 pounds of double what I do. Suppose she lost a lot of weight - would she still have very broad shoulders and hips? I don’t think she would because people who lose a lot of weight would be very odd looking afterwards and they seldom are.
southpark/ he must have a huge bone in his ass /southpark
Seriously:
humans have a almost unlimited ability to maintain a good opinion of themselves through rationalization and self deception
Hmmm, IME people have an almost unlimited capacity for self loathing.
This thread has turned into “is it possible to be big-boned?” The answer is yes, it is.
If you have doubts about this, then think about it. Tailors have been measuring people for centuries, if not millenia. Measuring what, you ask? Get fitted for a shirt and jacket and find out. The shirt’s measurement will probably be collar/sleeve, and the jacket will be chest/sleeve. If the tailor is fitting a custom suit, he’ll measure a man across the shoulders, under the arm, around the chest, and from his neck to his hip. Your slacks would be measured in waist, hips, and inseam. Other places, too, especially if you’re Joey Tribiani. I’ll let the women speak up about the various measurements necessary to be tailored for an equivalent fit on a full-sleeved gown of some kind.
It is clear that not everybody’s arms are the same length proportionate to other measurements. Now answer this question: when you get fat, do your arms get longer?
No.
Clearly, it is possible to be weight X and have considerable variation in the length of one’s arms. That’s why they make suit jackets in sizes like “44 Long.” That’s why they make shoe sizes in “extra wide.”
Skeletons vary. Why is this even a question?
Chiming in, another big-boned and fat person. In college, I was in a study at the local hospital on bone density (as it related to osteoporosis and age) and have the scans they did (MRI? The big loud ring thing) to prove it: my bone density is almost two standard deviations above the norm. I’m 5’8" and I was skinny until puberty - but always at the 80 to 90th percentile on height and weight.
Anecdotally, my family is almost exclusively heavy-boned or very lightly boned. Bricks or birds, as it were. My grandmother weighed 155 when she married, and my aunt, her daughter, weighed 115 and barely fit in the same dress. They were approximately the same height and age at the time of using the dress, too.
I’m big-boned, and I’m fat. My sister is big-boned and slim, but it’s really obvious that her bones are just large. She’s built like a model, only in a larger size. I think my oldest daughter is going to be the same; she has no extra fat (I have to take in every waistband), but her legs are just not like the legs of her bitty little friends. They look like Amazon legs compared to the others, but it’s easy to see that it’s all bone and muscle–just like my sister’s legs.
My hands, knees, etc. have always been large–in high school my hands were the same size as many of my guy friends’ hands. I can barely get a regular women’s watch on my wrist, which is not fat. I was never a size 6 even in junior high when I wasn’t at all pudgy; I doubt that it would be possible for me to ever be less than a 12 (which I would love to be). My shoulders are slightly broader and my arms slightly longer than the norm for women (as I remember every time I try to buy a blouse). I do think that my bones contribute to my weight quite a bit; even if I lost the weight I need to lose, I would never be 120. My ideal, very healthy weight would be more like 160.
Maybe it was all that milk I drank in high school.
Okay, since this is IMHO I’m gonna let it fly and I don’t care what you fatties think.
I stand 5’ 10" and weigh about 150 lbs. I’m pretty sure that any other guy my height would have bones of approximately the same size. I mean how much difference can there be in the size of our bones? And what does that have to do with weight anyway? Aren’t my bones bigger than someone who is only 5 feet tall? There are lots of 5 footers who weigh a hell of a lot more than me.
Suppose I gained another 50 pounds. Would my bones be bigger than they are now? No! Could I compensate for it by saying I’m big boned? Yeah. Pretty slick, but BS.
To sum it up, it is my opinion that people who claim their excess weight is due to big bones were told that by someone who didn’t want to hurt their feelings and wound up believing it.
This post not only states my opinion but also adresses the OP.
I am small boned.
ON THE ONE HAND: Big boned people can carry some additional weight and it scarcely makes a difference. If I gain 8 ounces it shows.
ON THE OTHER HAND: No matter how much a big boned person starves and exercises, those hip bones aren’t going to shrink down to look like mine. The front of their ribcage cartilage is still going to be a lot farther away from their vertebrae than the corresponding bones in my bod.
And as others have said, it has nothing to do with sex or gender.
This is true. I’m very thin, and just small in pretty much all way. Short, slender, small frame, all of that. I haven’t really gained lots of weight, but whenever I’ve lost weight, it’s made me look really awful. It was never very much, but I remember losing maybe a few pounds in college when I was exercising a lot/eating less (not consciously) and my parents being very worried because it just showed so damned much.
I guess it also works the other way around. Like when I get older, if I gain a few pounds, it’ll show, and I’ll have to work at keeping my weight down.
[quote=“Waenara, post:4, topic:494305”]
[li]I admit that I am fat (BMI 41.6), but I do believe that (objectively speaking) I also have a large “frame” (skeleton). For example, this website shows how to calculate your frame size by measuring your wrist or elbow. My elbow width is 8cm, which being female and 5’5" tall it says I have a large frame. [/li][li]By contrast, my mother is almost the same size as me (wears the same size clothing, but is shorter and weighs slightly less), and she freely admits she has a small frame size.[/list][/li][/QUOTE]
Does anyone else get different results from the tests in that link? Apparently, I’m small, medium and large framed.
I don’t see any reason not to believe some people are large boned. As someone said upthread, look at shoe sizes. Healthy height/weight charts have acceptable ranges, so a larger framed person could be on the higher end of a healthy weight without being overweight or obese.
I’ve never heard anyone use “big-bonedness” to excuse their own obesity. In my experience, 99% of fat people–especially women–know they’re fat.
When big-bonedness is used as an excuse, it’s usually some kindly grandmother doing it. As in, “My grandson’s a little husky, but he’s just big-boned.”