Settle a debate with DH on skeletons and body size!

[whydoesitalwaysrainonme82]

DH said everyones skeleton is pretty much the same size. I said but everyone has different frames. It started because I was saying that even when I am at my slimmest my waist doesnt get smaller than 30inches, my body frame isnt that small, I am also quite wide on the shoulders, think swimmer type frame. DH said its to do with muscle mass not bone size and if you had 3 men skeletons in a row of same height , they wouldnt really differ from each other even if in real life they were all different frames.

Thoughts? I know this is probably something I should know by now so dont flame me down!!

On wrists at the weekend, I tried on a male friends leather bracelet, he’s a six foot slim man, I’m five eight and healthy weight female. I could have wrapped his bracelet round my wrist by another half it looked very big on me.

As much as it’s Male to female. The difference was surprisingly pronounced. He has no fat on his wrists, so it was purely the difference in the size of the bones. Which were approx fifty percent bigger than mine.

You are right. For example my shoulders and hips are the same width, which is not true of everyone.

Re the wrist thing - my wrists look thin, but when measured equate to a medium to large frame, because my hands are quite big so they make my wrists look tiny in comparison!

Of course people have different frames, which is why even really thin people struggle to fit Japanese sizing. Most of us have mixed DNA. My DH had hands like shovels and big shoulders, my middle DD has inherited his shoulders. My youngest DD naturally weighs heavier, she punches heavily as well, even though my middle DD is stronger than her. They both do martial arts. It's true that it isn't just dones that make us wider etc, all of our layers including tissue, contributes and that can't be altered by weight loss, weight training etc. It's like saying that you can diet your nose slimmer.

Well your husband is incorrect. Shoulders, rib cage and hips can be wider or narrower. However your skeleton is not going to affect your waist unless the space between your rib cage and hips is abnormally small.

You have a reply from an osteologist backing you op! (i love mn) So I think this thread is ready to show DH :o

Also even though I'm fatter than my DD, she can't fit into my petite size clothing, which I need to fit me on my shoulders. I buy friendship style bracelets as well, if 6.5/7 inch isn't available. Likewise I am a size i ring size, yet our heights aren't much different.

Also people’s relative leg/trunk length may vary, which gives rise to different body shapes too.

Yes. My cousin weighs less than I do but my rings and watch are too small for her.

I was very bored in a biology lesson when I was 13 and everyone on the bench measured each other’s heads. All girls, all (roughly) the same age and almost exactly the same length heads.

Well your husband is incorrect. Shoulders, rib cage and hips can be wider or narrower. However your skeleton is not going to affect your waist unless the space between your rib cage and hips is abnormally small.

I’ve heard of some woman having bottom ribs removed because she wanted a Jessica Rabbit shaped frame .

@SerenDippitty

Well your husband is incorrect. Shoulders, rib cage and hips can be wider or narrower. However your skeleton is not going to affect your waist unless the space between your rib cage and hips is abnormally small.

I’ve heard of some woman having bottom ribs removed because she wanted a Jessica Rabbit shaped frame .

And some men for other reasons

Skeletons do vary but not as much a people do. Body type is part skeleton, part muscule and part where you store fat (and how easily you can gain/ lose weight).
We don't have a waist bone though so I'm afraid your waist measurement is not due to your skeleton.

I just used the wrist measurement BMI thing to determine what size frame I have and Im (5’6’’) large framed (wrist is 7 inches), DH (6’) asked what I was doing and took his wrist measurement, we both have the same sized wrist, don’t I feel dainty! If anyone is interested in using this to find out what your frame may be

wrist measurement

Weirdly, my wrists and fingers are tiny, but even when I was a size 8 I always weighed quite a lot. Not sure what that says about my strange body.

Bones don’t vary by much even when bone density comes into play. He’s right in that your waist has nothing to do with bones and is more about fat / muscle.

www.bustle.com/articles/47686-can-you-really-have-big-bones-this-chart-will-tell-you-if-your-body-frame-is

This is an interesting link, you can definitely have a larger skeleton (bigger bones etc)

Elbow bone measurement is most accurate for frame size. I suspect hip bone to hip bone also needed for women. In my teens I was unwell and visibly underweight, prominent bones showing at collarbone, ribs and hips but my frame dictated I was a 12 at 5’9” in anything fitted. Hips and rib cage don’t shrink beyond the bones. Tall models who are small dress sizes are proof of skeletal size differences and some can’t fit in the clothes regardless of weight as they develop adult bone structure.

There is possibly less variation in male skeletal frame as they don’t have hip changes with puberty. Or pregnancy.

Your DH is a pillock.

Of course skeletons are different sizes. You only have to look at the hands of two different people of the same height to realise that.

And I’m not sure if it’s related to frame size but when I was callipered at the gym I was told I was carrying about 15 lbs more muscle than expected for my sex/height/age, without doing any exercise bar walking the dog, so suspect I have some sturdy Neanderthal dna hiding away somewhere.

A racehorse and a shire horse are about the same height. Same skeleton? No way.

I think it's more complex, undoubtedly skeletons are different shapes but not a huge difference in the main, however, muscle and far applies itself differently too which also changed the frame shape without necessarily being overweight.

My two adult teen sons are broadly the same height (6'2 and 6'3) but one weighs at least a stone more than the other, he's the one that wears a smaller t shirt as his build is quite straight from waist to shoulders, he wears a medium. The lighter D's has a narrow waist and very broad shoulders. I can't see heavier DS2 ever having a narrower waist as he's not overweight. I presume there is both skeletal difference and a difference in the way their soft tissue forms.

Medic here -everyone's skeleton is different.

I think in the context Op was talking about ie her waist not getting smaller because of her build I think her DH was right. That’s down to fat and muscle.
But if she was saying she has no shape because her shoulders and hips are all similar size that’s skeleton.
Skeletons and shape must be different. I’m 5’3” with size 7 feet My fathers 6’ 3” a size 14 foot. We are naturally large (my stomach is all carbs though).

@Leflic

I think in the context Op was talking about ie her waist not getting smaller because of her build I think her DH was right. That’s down to fat and muscle. But if she was saying she has no shape because her shoulders and hips are all similar size that’s skeleton. Skeletons and shape must be different. I’m 5’3” with size 7 feet My fathers 6’ 3” a size 14 foot. We are naturally large (my stomach is all carbs though).

Exactly.

The OP says at her slimmest her waist doesn't get smaller than 30 inches but if she was emaciated it obviously would.

I gave birth to a 10lb + baby and went up a dress size on my bottom half because my pelvis got wider by about an inch

You are right OP.