Can a person have heavy bones? Big bones and obesity: debunking the myths
You've probably heard overweight people say, "They're just heavy bones!" But you can put an end to this myth once and for all. Finally find out if heavy bones really exist.
How heavy are our bones?
Is excess weight caused by heavy bones? This is a myth and a lazy excuse for fat people. This has been confirmed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Bones form the structure of the skeleton, which supports the body and allows the body to stand upright.
In the average person, bones make up approximately 8 to 9% of the total body weight. It would be only 7.2 kg at 80 kilograms. Not a reason to be overweight at all.
The weight of a bone is derived from its size and density. Thus, individual bones have different weights. In general, women have slightly lighter and thinner bones than men. Moreover, due to high mobility, healed injuries, and genetic predisposition, bone density may vary. However, these fluctuations amount to at most 10% within the bone mass and this is no more than one kilogram for one person.
What then makes people heavy?
What really leads to excess weight is the accumulated fat in our body. Which is a consequence of eating too much or an unbalanced diet, which is stored as a reserve for a rainy day. Of course, there is another reason why some non-fat people are heavier than others. Muscle is very heavy compared to fat. So a muscular man weighs more than a thin and unathletic man.
Heavier people are somewhat denser and therefore their bones become heavier over time. Because their body needs more support, it doesn't matter whether it's too much fat or too much muscle mass. These slightly heavier bones do not cause excess weight
Is it possible to improve bone density?
Poor nutrition or diseases such as osteoporosis lead to decreased bone density. The result is skeletal damage and serious health consequences. Yet, you can influence your bone density yourself. Through a diet rich in calcium, bones become stronger. In addition, frequent and regular exercise also helps develop dense and stable bones.
Researchers' opinion
Canadian scientists have found that the higher the load, the wider and heavier the bone. Before reaching this conclusion, they observed the physical activity of adolescents. Researchers claim that sport helps you not literally break down. Not only the muscles, but also the skeleton become stronger. It is known that humans have exactly 206 bones. They all form a vertical column. Thanks to him, the body can afford to walk on two legs. The human hand is considered the most bony - it consists of more than 54 elements.
Tubular, short, flat and mixed - each bone has its own purpose, but the function is the same: to serve as a strong frame for the body. The worst thing that a skeleton can get is “osteogenesis imperfecta” (crystal disease).
What helps strengthen bone tissue?
The structure of a person's bones changes throughout his life. After birth it increases, reaching a peak at 25-30 years. From 30 to 45 years, bone density remains virtually unchanged, and after 45 years, regardless of whether a person is sick or healthy, the natural physiological process of rarefaction of the bone structure begins.
To prevent bone density from decreasing, you should not only exercise, but also include foods high in calcium in your diet. The daily calcium intake for an adult is 1200 milligrams. Most of it is found in cottage cheese, cheese, whole milk, and fermented milk products. If there is not enough calcium supplied, the body begins to take it from the bones.
Some numbers
It’s hard to say where the excuse “I have a big bone” came from. But you can publish a text about how much the skeleton weighs and how much its weight can vary from person to person.
The dry, fat-free and dehydrated human skeleton (that is, what remains of you and me in this world) weighs on average only about 4 kg for men and about 2.8 kg for women. In percentage terms, the skeleton occupies approximately 6-7% of the body weight of an adult.
Bone density makes adjustments
We all know from the school curriculum what density is - and so, with the same volumes, the skeletons of different people can have slightly different weights, i.e. Some people will have denser bones, some less dense ones. How big a difference can there be and what does it depend on?
Bone mineral density can change with age (including due to osteoporosis), with concomitant diseases, and nutrition (it decreases with poor nutrition, and, conversely, with sufficient nutrition). Also, bone density depends on weight loss or weight gain: scientists have calculated that with the loss of every 1 kg of fat in the body, an average of about 16.5 g of minerals in the bones is lost; in fact, when gaining the same 1 kg of fat, approximately the same amount is restored per background of the existing training volume.
Here are the average normal values for bone density, including data for athletes and athletes who are developing adaptation of bone tissue to impact loads, and an approximate calculation of the difference in grams between these values, so that you can clearly understand what the overall value for the total bone/skeletal weight is, has bone mass density.
Average values for bone mass density in adults are in the region of 1.0 – 1.2 g/cm2. Roughly speaking, this can be translated as +/-10% for different people depending on the factor. These values vary depending on age, gender, race, level and type of physical activity, nutritional status, body condition, presence of diseases, etc.
By the way, even growth hormone does not make significant adjustments to bone density. Scientists conducted a controlled 15-year study in which growth hormone injections were given to more than 100 people. Bottom line: over 15 years, the average increase in bone mass was only 14 grams.
Wide but light
Ultimately, what we have is that the total mass of human bones, excluding fat and liquid content, is something like 4-5 kg in adult men and 2-3 kg in adult women.
Within these same boundaries, the mass may fluctuate, depending on the bone mass density, but again this difference will not be so significant, in any case - up to 1 kg, depending on the bone mass density. By and large, talk about “broad bones”, “powerful frames”, which radically affect the overall weight of a person’s body, “fat power” and genetic predisposition to increased weight gain, in fact, are not entirely comparable with the real state of affairs.
Yes, the difference in height and build certainly gives its own shifts in various indicators of bone mass from person to person, but these indicators do not differ by 5-10 kilograms, but average no more than 2-3 kg from person to person.
Netizens' responses
Guest
This means that the bones are denser than those of other dead-boned people, but a heavy bone has one or even two disadvantages, firstly, a heavy bone makes a person fat, and secondly, and for a girl in particular this is important, with a heavy bone a person walks with a limp, barely moving legs, and is not plastic.
Anna
What nonsense, a heavy bone does not mean at all that a person is overweight, he can also be thin, it’s just that the skeletal structure is not athletic and not flexible, a person cannot “raise his leg”, it’s hard for him to walk, and he walks with a heavy gait.
Svetlana
It’s the 21st century, and people still don’t know such elementary things! Bones weigh the same for everyone: 7 kg for women, 10 kg for men. If the bones, as they say, were “heavy” not in words, a person simply would not be able to fully move, the joints would not be able to absorb all movements. The expression itself refers to people of heavy build. By the way, there were no full people in Buchenwald.
Pie
“The human skeleton consists of approximately 206 bones, which in a healthy person constitute about 17.5% of body weight. Muscles account for 43%, internal organs ≈ 19%, skin and subcutaneous fat ≈ 17.8%, brain ≈ 2.2%. These data are averaged and vary among different individuals.”
Uninvited Guest
It's like mine. With a height of 49 kg, I look large. Not full, but somewhat wide. Even when she weighed 47, she was still far from skinny in appearance. For all my attempts to achieve elegance, I get zero results, because even with a small weight there is no trace of elegance. In general, a disgusting physique, especially with short stature.
This is true. it all depends on the number of partitions in the spongy bones, the thickness of the bone wall, the content of calcium and other trace elements. Men have heavier bones than women.
GooD HaSH
Heavy bones simply have more weight. And when the bones are heavy, this is very good, because fractures and all sorts of cracks occur several times less often than in people with light bones. By the way, not only men, but also women can have heavy bones.
Nathilty
In everyday life, this most often means the constitution of the skeleton, bone tissue itself is porous and calcium and other minerals should normally accumulate in these pores, and due to multiple pregnancies, long periods, when taking medications (diuretics, antihistamines, etc.) d.), due to age-related changes, calcium is washed out, the so-called osteoporosis
All the answers are generally correct, I’ll just add that in women the thickness of the bones can be determined by measuring the wrist, of course, if you do not suffer from severe obesity. Less than 16-17 means the bones are light, more are heavy.
Bones cannot be heavy or light. Most likely, this refers to body type. There are only three of them - mesomorphic - the so-called average build, people of this type are usually of average height, they have moderately developed muscles, etc.; The brachymorphic type assumes a wide skeleton, that is, the bones of this type are not heavier, but wider than those of other types. People of this type usually have wide hands, large feet, and broad shoulders. And the last type is dolichomorphic. These are the "elf" people. They have a fragile build, usually long thin fingers, and a narrow chest. It's easy to determine your body type - just measure your wrist. If the figure is less than 15 cm for a woman, then you have a narrow bone, if from 15 to 17 cm, you have an average build, if the value is more than 17 cm, then you have wide bones.
Olga
a heavy bone is a heavy bone. A wide bone can be light, a narrow bone can be heavy. Mine is wide and heavy. As a child, when I was skinny as a bicycle, I always weighed more than my peers of similar height and build. That’s where I know that my bones are heavy :)
When faced with the problem of excess weight, many people justify their weight by saying that they have “heavy bones.” Scientists conducted an experiment to find out whether this fact can occur, or whether it is just an “excuse” for not taking care of yourself.
In a normal healthy person, the bone apparatus weighs approximately 8.5% of the total weight. That is, if a lady weighs 75 kg, then the share of the skeletal system will be only 7 kg. Of course, such a figure is unlikely to be significant for the overall weight indicator. Therefore, it is at least illogical to attribute extra pounds to the weight of bones.
It has been established that the weight of bones directly depends not only on their size, but also on their density. At the same time, the bone structure of women is initially lighter than that of men. Of course, factors such as a person’s physical activity and genetic characteristics also have an influence. But these factors can change the mass of the skeletal system by no more than 10%, and this in total is no more than 1 kg of the total body weight.
More recently, medical specialists from Canada conducted a study and determined for what reasons human bones may differ in density.
An observation experiment was conducted on young people aged 14-16 years. Doctors examined and interviewed more than three hundred adolescents, primarily in order to determine the intensity of physical activity during the period of active development of the musculoskeletal system.
According to the results, experts determined that those people who were at least moderately involved in physical exercise in their youth later had higher bone density than those who were not physically active.
As scientists point out, bone mass density in young people has been steadily decreasing in recent years. This is due to the fact that teenagers pay little attention to physical activity, focusing mainly on computers, mobile phones and all kinds of gadgets. Therefore, the physical condition began to gradually fade into the background. Presumably, the hour is not far off when medical specialists will begin to sound the alarm about the physical health of the younger generation.
Of course, it is very important to ensure normal bone density in childhood and adolescence. After all, over the years, any person loses his bone mass. Bones become thinner due to natural causes, and this is medically called osteopenia. As a person ages, the risk of fracture increases: bone mass loses calcium and other minerals and becomes less heavy, less dense and more porous.
What can you do to improve the quality of your bones? Experts recommend: doing physical activity, taking courses of calcium and vitamin D, walking in the fresh air more often (especially in sunny weather). If you follow the suggested recommendations, your bones will indeed become “heavier” - but this is unlikely to cause excess weight: a person’s body weight depends mainly on the amount of fat and muscle tissue in the body.
In the section on the question Does the concept of HEAVY BONE actually exist??? You really need to know the answer... given by the author Suckers the best answer is There are three main body types: asthenic, normosthenic and hypersthenic.
In women with an asthenic (thin-boned) body type, longitudinal dimensions prevail over transverse ones: long limbs, thin bones, long, thin neck, muscles are relatively poorly developed. Representatives of this body type are usually light in weight, they are energetic, and even abundant nutrition does not immediately lead to weight gain, since they spend energy faster than they accumulate.
The physique of normosthenics (normal bone type) is distinguished by the proportionality of the main body dimensions and their correct ratio. Women of this body type are more likely than others to have a beautiful figure.
Representatives of a hypersthenic (broad-boned) physique have significantly larger transverse body dimensions than normosthenics and especially asthenics. Their bones are thick and heavy, their shoulders, chest and hips are wide, and their legs are short. It is important for women with this body type to remember that they tend to be overweight.
Answer from Olesya Naumova[guru]
Bones are more or less thin and, accordingly, heavy. If you grasp the wrist of one hand with the thumb and middle finger of the other, and the fingers either do not reach each other or touch, the bones are wide and heavy (wrist size 18 and up - this is called a thick bone). if there is overlap - thin and light.
Answer from Irish lace[guru]
the doctor won't just say that
Answer from Neuropathologist[guru]
Maria, as she will say))) in every profession there are enough incompetent people) and especially in Russia oh oh oh....if you want to live, figure it out on your own!
Lena is right! Here are the details
Answer from Tenant[guru]
Your friend has a lot of visceral fat. Is it dangerous