Any other ENDOMORPHS out there?

Lots of people will say that's not a thing, however I do think there's something to body types. From experience and people I know, there are those with builds that are more bulky and curvy/ wide, and have an easier time gaining both fat and muscle; and others who are either very small-framed and petite or 'long and lean', with narrow waists, hips etc, who seem to not gain weight easily and also have trouble putting on muscle. Asian people are one example - the Asian women I've known are able to eat very large amounts of food while remaining extremely slim, while Asian guys who are trying to build muscle have a much harder time doing so than their, say African American counterparts. Of course there are many exceptions, lifestyle does play a role, and most people are some mix of the body types, but they do exist. I mean, someone like Beyonce or Serena Williams, for instance, will likely never ever look like, say, Jessica Alba or Maria Sharapova, in spite of all these women being in close to optimal shape and having very closely monitored and professionally designed fitness and nutrition programmes

nettiklive wrote: »

Lots of people will say that's not a thing, however I do think there's something to body types. From experience and people I know, there are those with builds that are more bulky and curvy/ wide, and have an easier time gaining both fat and muscle; and others who are either very small-framed and petite or 'long and lean', with narrow waists, hips etc, who seem to not gain weight easily and also have trouble putting on muscle. Asian people are one example - the Asian women I've known are able to eat very large amounts of food while remaining extremely slim, while Asian guys who are trying to build muscle have a much harder time doing so than their, say African American counterparts. Of course there are many exceptions, lifestyle does play a role, and most people are some mix of the body types, but they do exist. I mean, someone like Beyonce or Serena Williams, for instance, will likely never ever look like, say, Jessica Alba or Maria Sharapova, in spite of all these women being in close to optimal shape and having very closely monitored and professionally designed fitness and nutrition programmes

Ive seen many fat asians, ive also seen many fat african americans,as well as other fat people of varying races.ive also seen slim people of those races and muscular ones of those races. not to mention a lot of these athletes eat a lot more than someone who isnt an athlete and they are active very very often,man of them work out besides their sport. just because serena is african american and maria sharipova is "white" doesnt mean anything when it comes to their body types and why one is bulkier than another.

nettiklive wrote: »

Two professional athletes in the same sport, why do they look SO dramatically different? I doubt that Williams purposefully attempts to bulk up in order to look like she does

This is actually quite offensive. Mixing race into a conversation about somatotypes is missing the entire point. You seem to be confusing genetics with woo. If you'd like to make some point about somatotypes for arguments sake, surely you can do it without comparing African American women to Caucasian women.

100_PROOF_ wrote: »

nettiklive wrote: »

Two professional athletes in the same sport, why do they look SO dramatically different? I doubt that Williams purposefully attempts to bulk up in order to look like she does

This is actually quite offensive. Mixing race into a conversation about somatotypes is missing the entire point. You seem to be confusing genetics with woo. If you'd like to make some point about somatotypes for arguments sake, surely you can do it without comparing African American women to Caucasian women.

The reason I picked these two women is not because of their race, but because they're good examples of two very different body types while being in the same sport and presumably having at least a somewhat similar training routine. I did also say that there are exceptions and mixtures of body types in every race; just some characteristics seem to be more common for certain races, it's not an absolute and certainly not meant in a racist or offensive way, sheesh! I lived in a place with a very large Asian population and I can tell you for a fact that the vast, vast majority of them were small-framed overall with a slighter bone structure and shorter in stature, than those of other races, and the overweight were rare exceptions; and yes, many males complained that they couldn't gain muscle in spite of working harder than their Caucasian or other friends. It is genetics - and note that I never mentioned 'somatypes' in my post, I only said body types. I do agree that diets and personality traits etc based on body types is utter BS! What I was trying to say is there seems to be a correlation between a person's genetical build and frame, how much muscle they naturally have and how they store fat, and their predisposition to gaining or losing fat and muscle throughout their life, which I thought was similar to somatypes. So people who are naturally bigger framed tend to gain fat and muscle more easily than those who are smaller. Or, like in my case, myself and my sister both have the shape of our paternal grandmother, extremely pear shaped with very thin upper body and heavy legs even at very low BMI. For both of us, we naturally have more muscle AND fat in our legs, and that is also the easiest body part to build muscle and strength, and also the first to gain fat and last to lose it.

nettiklive wrote: »

100_PROOF_ wrote: »

nettiklive wrote: »

Two professional athletes in the same sport, why do they look SO dramatically different? I doubt that Williams purposefully attempts to bulk up in order to look like she does

This is actually quite offensive. Mixing race into a conversation about somatotypes is missing the entire point. You seem to be confusing genetics with woo. If you'd like to make some point about somatotypes for arguments sake, surely you can do it without comparing African American women to Caucasian women.

The reason I picked these two women is not because of their race, but because they're good examples of two very different body types while being in the same sport and presumably having at least a somewhat similar training routine. I did also say that there are exceptions and mixtures of body types in every race; just some characteristics seem to be more common for certain races, it's not an absolute and certainly not meant in a racist or offensive way, sheesh! I lived in a place with a very large Asian population and I can tell you for a fact that the vast, vast majority of them were small-framed overall with a slighter bone structure and shorter in stature, than those of other races, and the overweight were rare exceptions; and yes, many males complained that they couldn't gain muscle in spite of working harder than their Caucasian or other friends. It is genetics - and note that I never mentioned 'somatypes' in my post, I only said body types. I do agree that diets and personality traits etc based on body types is utter BS! What I was trying to say is there seems to be a correlation between a person's genetical build and frame, how much muscle they naturally have and how they store fat, and their predisposition to gaining or losing fat and muscle throughout their life, which I thought was similar to somatypes. So people who are naturally bigger framed tend to gain fat and muscle more easily than those who are smaller. Or, like in my case, myself and my sister both have the shape of our paternal grandmother, extremely pear shaped with very thin upper body and heavy legs even at very low BMI. For both of us, we naturally have more muscle AND fat in our legs, and that is also the easiest body part to build muscle and strength, and also the first to gain fat and last to lose it.

If you had simply said the bolded above, I don't think anyone would have had a problem. Whether or not you intended your first post to be offensive, it did come off as casually racist by your using stereotypes of African American and Asian people. The rest of your response above just doubles down on that, unfortunately.

That is why the somatotype theory is so problematic. Sheldon was trying to link psychological traits to a person's physique, and his work embedded the attitudes of the 1940's in it's foundation.

There certainly are genetic predispositions to skeletal frame, muscle and fat. Nobody here has disputed that. The idea that our bodies have a fixed somatotype is debunked, however. The Heath-Carter methodology still gets referenced for indexing populations, but when it gets used to categorize individual people to give fitness advice it's pretty much useless.

I'm an equalitymorph and know that stereotypes do nothing to fix things and that bringing them up only makes one seem ignorant and oblivious to the world around them.

WTF did I walk into with this thread... an OP asked an innocent question about some commonly misunderstood woo, got good answers, was receptive, and suddenly its turned into a racially biased genetics discussion?

I’m just waiting for Jimmy the Greek to show up at this point.