Ever heard of "Heavy Bones"?

Evelyn_Gorfram
Evelyn_Gorfram Posts: 706 Member
edited August 2018 in Health and Weight Loss
People on my mom's side of the family often seem to be about 20 lbs heavier then most people with the same height and general shape. Mom has also said that this is because we all have "heavy bones." OTOH, people on my mom's side of the family also tend to be overweight, so it might be an excuse/lie/familial urban legend. Has anyone ever heard of people having "heavy bones"?
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Replies

  • Evelyn_Gorfram
    Evelyn_Gorfram Posts: 706 Member
    I think if it were possible, it would be a medical condition -- like some heavier element is displacing the calcium in your bones. I don't think that would be good.
    Yeah, I've heard of that happening with the radioactive isotope Strontium 90, and it's not at all good - although weight gain does not seems to be one of its effects.

  • Evelyn_Gorfram
    Evelyn_Gorfram Posts: 706 Member
    jrochest wrote: »
    "Big-boned" is often a euphemism for 'heavy' or obese...but I've never heard of 'heavy-bones'.
    Cbean08 wrote: »
    Nope. But I have heard of people being in denial.
    That's kind of what I figured (and my family are indeed champions of denial). Just wondered, since we seem to be the only family ever to house our denial in that particular phrase.

  • skinnyrev2b
    skinnyrev2b Posts: 400 Member
    We use 'heavy bones' too. Hadn't realised it wasn't widespread as a saying. As you say, it's widely used as an excuse for being overweight. However I will say that whilst I am overweight (25.4 bmi), I carry my weight in such a way that I LOOK like I'm much lighter than I am. Maybe your family is similar?
  • Deviette
    Deviette Posts: 979 Member
    Often a euphemism for overweight.

    However I have heard it used to describe women who have naturally broader shoulders. (and in some cases where she's got muscles but it's not necessarily obvious)
  • DoubleUbea
    DoubleUbea Posts: 1,115 Member
    There is a medical condition and I can't think of the name where people have more bone growth, it is hereditary but there is a lot more to it. It is a small number of the population and chances are it wont be passed to the children.
  • Evelyn_Gorfram
    Evelyn_Gorfram Posts: 706 Member
    We use 'heavy bones' too. Hadn't realised it wasn't widespread as a saying. As you say, it's widely used as an excuse for being overweight. However I will say that whilst I am overweight (25.4 bmi), I carry my weight in such a way that I LOOK like I'm much lighter than I am. Maybe your family is similar?
    I don't think it is widespread as a saying (er, is your "heavy-boned" family from South-Central Kansas, by any chance?).

    And yeah, we do all tend to look about 20 lbs lighter than we are, so that's probably what the "heavy bones" thing really means. (I sure wish I understood exactly how the business of "carrying ones weight well" works. I mean, I guess I do it, but where is it? Tucked around my kidneys or something?)

  • sidlondon
    sidlondon Posts: 10 Member
    The older people in my family say this too. Although I think it's more that they carry any extra weight in a way that hides it (the women tend to be extreme hourglass shapes, even when skinny, and then men are rugby player types) and having naturally high amounts of muscle. They tend to be very strong, so I've always assumed this was referring to muscle density rather than the actual bones.
  • Evelyn_Gorfram
    Evelyn_Gorfram Posts: 706 Member
    edited August 2018
    Deviette wrote: »
    However I have heard it used to describe women who have naturally broader shoulders. (and in some cases where she's got muscles but it's not necessarily obvious)
    Hmm.. we do all have pretty broad shoulders (I spent the eighties removing shoulder pads from all my workwear, which then fit rather nicely :) ).

  • fruoshea
    fruoshea Posts: 46 Member
    edited August 2018
    I've never heard heavy boned (though I'm not originally from an English speaking country), but I've heard big boned often - and often meaning different things. Usually it's been said about (by) people who are clearly overweight but who are trying to make out that they're not as overweight as they are or that it's not completely their fault. Other times though it's been used about (by) people who genuinely have broader bone structure - broad shoulders, broad hips, etc, regardless of whether they were overweight or not. But most often it's used in relation to someone who is overweight - broad shoulders/hips/skeleton or not.

    So I guess the question is, are they using it as a way to say their skeleton weighs much more than everyone else's (i.e. is it a thing they say to justify not even thinking about trying to see if they can lose some weight) or do they mean the same as big boned (which of course can also be an excuse).

    I think I'm one of those people who carry my weight in a way that makes me look lighter too. I've never been massively overweight (hovering around 25-26 in BMI at my heaviest) so I don't know what would happen if I were to become obese, but at the moment all my surplus weight is in my bum and thighs. So while I could do with losing like 20 lbs at my heaviest you could still grab hold of my rib-cage or see my hip bones protruding. I've even had bruises on my hip bones from doing the bow pose in yoga (lying on your stomach and grabbing hold of your feet, making a circle).
  • CarvedTones
    CarvedTones Posts: 2,340 Member
    edited August 2018
    It amazes me how heavy/big bones shrink when people lose a lot of weight. Up to a point, I carry weight pretty well; it is pretty evenly distributed until I get about 25 to 30 pounds overweight. At 20 pounds over I started getting questions about why I was still trying to lose more.

    There are big boned people. If you can feel the bones right under the skin on each side of your wrist (in other words, not a lot of fat there) and you grab the wrist with the other hand and cannot touch the thumb to the middle finger (really trying) then your bones are "big" - a higher than average diameter compared to the length. If there is a lot of fat around the wrist and/or your fingers are like sausages then you need to lose some weight before it's valid (or even meaningful, for that matter). At my current weight (BMI ~24) I can touch my thumb to my ring finger, so I can't use the big boned excuse.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    I am one of those people that will struggle with watches. I often need to replace the average-sized band with a larger one. I have also never broken a bone and not for a lack of trying when I was an idiot dare-devilly kid. It is probably a good thing considering all of the extra weight I have had to carry. It excuses nothing though. Fat is still fat. Above average bone size may add a little to my lean body weight but that is also why there is a range of healthy weights which takes it all into account. Whatever my goal ends up being I doubt it will be the bottom of my range.
  • ExistingFish
    ExistingFish Posts: 1,259 Member
    Skeleton frame sizes do vary a little. I think it just means you are overweight but your weight is distributed in a way that makes it appear you are just a little wider all over, instead of having a large stomach or big thighs, it's all proportional. Never heard "heavy bones" just "big boned", but that is just my take.