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!!

There are no bones in the waist area (other than the spine) so the argument does not work regarding waist size. It would be relevant if you were talking about hips.

I think I remember reading somewhere recently that if you are very strong/exercise a lot your bones do get bigger, eg the bones of a tennis player's racquet arm will be bigger than those of their other arm.

He knows that the size would be different in a 5ft 7 women and a 5ft women for example. But he is saying that if you had two 5ft female skeletons side by side, they would be pretty much the same even if when they were alive they appear to have very different physiques. So he is saying its fat and muscle that gives people different frames not the bone structure!

Skeletons are definitely different. I’m the same height as my friend but have much wider shoulders and bigger wrists, without being fat. Even my face is broader.
Just used the wrist calculator thing and I am ‘large framed’

@JoysOfString

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

I like being right!! ;-)

And if you watch historical documentaries where they unearth skeletons, they can make comments like ‘this individual was slightly built’ almost as soon as they get the skeleton uncovered.

Aren’t you both sort of right? Obviously my skeleton is going to be nowhere near the same as someone the same age, sex and weight as me but 6 inches shorter. Or someone that is the same height and weight as me but a man rather than a woman. However you’re talking polar opposites there. For the vast majority of average people their skeleton is u likely to differ very significantly from others of a similar build. Obviously they’re not identical across the board but equally they’re not so different that you’d be able to stand in front of a line up and pick out your great aunt tessie over and above 6 others of a similar build.

There are no bones in the waist area, but if you have a broad ribcage and pelvis, your waist isn't going to just go right in (unless you were really emaciated). Even more so if you're muscular in the abs abs and back.

Since having DS, my hips have definitely got wider, not fat/etc, a genuine change in bone placement/structure and this is very common

Peoples' skeletons do vary, with more variation in women's than men's.

There are 3 of us in my family at 5'2". We have different body shapes. I'm a pear, DGM is slightly hourglass with more bust. DM is just heavier built. DM and I build muscle more easily.

However there isn't much more than a few clothes sizes difference in variation on bone structure between people of similar height.

Unless someone is very slim, it can be hard to distinguish between layers of muscle and fat. People build those layers differently too.

It's easier to see the bone structure on a person with lower body fat. Muscle is less deceptive. Often people who talk about having a broad frame, or heavy bones do have surplus fat. It doesn't mean it's untrue, but a woman with a broad build might be slim at size 14, but if she's size 22, that's not entirely down to her bone structure. A slim build at the same height might mean that she can't go below an 8-10 but would never be a 6.

You’re right op. Have fun telling DH he’s wrong!

I've just been looking this up! It says skeleton 'widths' are mostly very similar - 15% are wider than average and 15% are narrower. So 70% of us have the same size skeletons (proportional to our height). Wider hips on women are generally because lots of women carry fat there.

Your both right and wrong :)
Skeletons do differ in size, but not nearly as much as people do. And they really don’t contirbute to anything above the “normal” weight range. Nobody os overweigth because of their bones, that’s fat ( and in rare cases muscle, but that is for a very small umber of athletes)

Fat and muscle are responsible for the majority of how our 'frames' appear, but he is wrong in saying that skeketons are generally uniform. One of the key variables for recording a skeleton is whether the bones are 'gracile' (lighter, thinner, more delicate) or 'robust'. It would be common in eg an anthropological/archaeological recording of a skeleton to say, for example, that an individual could be 'a female, or possibly a gracile male'.

I always thought I had big hips, but I lost Weight and exercised a lot more and now they are pretty narrow.

There is also the observation that modern populations in general have more gracile bones overall, probably as a result of increasing industrialisation, instead of everyone running around farming and lifting and slogging their guts out!

And you can increase your bone density by weight training.

You can surely have similarly dimensioned bones with different density? Bone is a living organ and responds to diet, exercise, disease and load (i.e. weight or by implication height). I would expect for a slender 6 foot woman to have longer bones than a similarly built 5 foot woman, and denser bones to carry the extra load. I would not expect the bones to be 'broader', though I understand what you mean OP, as colloquially we talk about being 'big boned' or 'small boned'.

I have no scientific knowledge on this but just logically, given that we know people can be different heights and have different sized hands, why would it make sense that there can be different lengths of femurs or fingers, but not different sized pelvises or rib cages?

I do think people can use 'big boned' or 'big frame' as an excuse for being overweight though. A big frame would affect your dress size but doesn't necessarily have to affect your weight.

I'm one inch taller than DM, and take half a size bigger in shoes. Yet despite being a dress size smaller I weigh a stone more. It must be down ro a difference in bone structure/ density.

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.

Is what the OPs DH actually said. That if you are same sex and same height, your skeletons wouldn’t really differ from each other. This is generally correct.

Of course, men’s skeletons are more robust than women’s skeletons, even if the same height. And adult skeletons are more robust and have fewer bones than a child’s skeleton of the same height and sex.

There are minor differences in size within same sex and same height and that is to do with occupational effects on the bones. For example man avid horseback rider will have slightly bowed thigh bones (femurs), a manual labourer or body builder will have larger muscle attachments areas (these calcify and become part of your bones so the bones look slightly bigger in the areas where your muscles attach.)

Osteoporosis does not change the size of your bones, only bone density.

Diseases like syphilis and tuberculosis literally eat away your bones and those do change the shape and size of your skeleton.

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

I think you are both right but mean different things. You are correct that there is variation in skeleton/bone size but your DH is also correct that the variation is less of a factor in body size/shape than muscle and fat. If you took 100 people of the same sex and height, there would be a lot less variation in hand span and head circumference than thigh circumference and waist size.

@JoysOfString

There are no bones in the waist area, but if you have a broad ribcage and pelvis, your waist isn't going to just go right in (unless you were really emaciated). Even more so if you're muscular in the abs abs and back.

I dont go in and out if that makes sense,just broad all the way down but I dont have much fat.

Ps. I've also hot size 8 feet, hopefully I havent just got fat feet lol!!

Skeletons are different sizes. But what you're talking about is to do with muscle and fat distribution, not skeleton size/shape. Your waist size will be determined by how much fat and muscle you have there. You can manipulate it by doing workouts or losing body fat but your genetics will dictate it for the most part.

If people had the same size skeletons, they would be the same height. They would have the same inseams. They would have the same ring size. They would have the same hat size.