“I have a wide bone”: what scientists say about the density and weight of bones. How to determine whether a person has a wide bone or not. Wide and narrow bones in humans.

About the thin pelvic bone and slim figure many women dream of, but to brag perfect physique Not everyone can. Is it possible to achieve slimness with wide bones? How to lose weight without harming your health, whether all problems with your figure should be attributed to a predisposition and give up, let’s consider in the form detailed instructions in this article.

Body types

Body type depends on the width of the bone and is of three types:

  • thin-boned
  • medium boned
  • big-boned

Bone thickness can be determined in the following ways at home:

  1. The thickness of the bone can be easily determined from the wrist by measuring it with a measuring tape. With a wrist girth of 15-18 cm, the bone is considered thin. With a girth of 17-18 cm - medium, with a girth of 20 cm - wide.
  2. The bone can also be considered thin when the fingers are closed right hand around the left wrist.
  3. Body type is not difficult to determine by your figure. Those with thin bones have elongated limbs, strictly in a vertical position.

Wide hips in women

Wide hips have a hereditary transmission factor, and not every woman is happy with this. Despite dissatisfaction with this body type, it is those with wide bones who are more resilient and fit for giving birth to healthy and strong children.

The formation of the hips occurs in adolescence, during bone growth and puberty. Women with wide hips tend to be tall and well-proportioned. They say about such people: “moderately well-fed, blood and milk.”

Size pelvic bones depends on hormones, in women - estrogen, levels that directly affect the density and width of bones during the formation of the skeleton, especially with the advent of menstruation in girls during puberty. In women with a wide pelvis, childbirth proceeds more easily, there are fewer ruptures of the vagina and cervix, but it is precisely with this type of bones that women quickly gain weight after childbirth.

Big bones or slow metabolism?

Women with wide bones are often inherited; it is this type of people who are prone to being overweight and there is no point in conducting complex laboratory tests for this. Having relatives with overweight, there will definitely be a predisposition to obesity, but factors affecting metabolism and metabolic rate are not the least important.

Exactly slow metabolism leads to the accumulation of calories in the body, their deposition into fat. Thin people, who are not inclined to be overweight, can constantly eat different delicacies, with a fast metabolism, do not gain weight, and remain slim. Still, one cannot completely blame the metabolic rate on heredity.

By eating right and playing sports, it is quite possible to correct the speed, and to protect yourself in the future from diabetes, which simply awaits obese people by the age of 35-40, then it will be much more difficult to correct the figure. The disease is insidious and sometimes cannot be treated.

Is the predisposition to obesity real or fictitious?

Typically, women with broad bone dissatisfied with themselves, but cannot correct the situation on their own; diets and daily sports activities. The weight loss system must be correct, suitable for a specific person. However, even if you follow all the rules for losing weight desired results Not everyone succeeds. What is the reason for this? Could it be because of the wide bone?

Unfortunately, a predisposition to obesity does exist and is by no means fictitious, but sufficiently persistent and purposeful people manage to achieve good results, slimness despite the presence of a wide bone. The exception is people who have chronic advanced diseases, diabetes mellitus, who need to be treated first, and only then force themselves to lose weight.

Despite the tendency to overeat to be overweight, you should not eat stress. In addition to the natural inclination, many women eat completely incorrectly, thereby making it fictitious, without realizing their eating behavior.

How to lose weight if you have wide bones?

Whatever the predisposition, there is simply no reason for obesity. Those with wide bones should not give up at all; rational nutrition and a healthy sports lifestyle have not been canceled. However, diet and exercise must be chosen correctly, with an emphasis on correcting problem areas, in particular, the broad pelvic bone.

When deciding to “lose weight,” you shouldn’t stop halfway and despair. Only faith in success, a positive mood and perseverance will help in the struggle for the desired result.

Weight loss – long stage, achieve correction of your figure in short time It's unlikely to be possible. The right diet nutrition and fitness should become the norm of life, integral rules for everyday work on your figure. But you shouldn’t limit yourself in everything, strict diet will not bring any benefit, you can create more complex health problems for yourself.

Food should be healthy and tasty, fortunately, a variety of products today provide such an opportunity, you just need to find your own nutrition system, learn to eat properly and wisely. Snacking on the run is harmful and that's just it bad habit, which you can get rid of if you really want to.

Truth and fiction about broad bone

The concept of a wide bone was invented by the people; it is difficult to talk about the thickness of the bone about a person’s tendency to inevitably become fat. Initially thin people may well suffer from excess weight, while hypersthenics with broad bones remain slim throughout their lives.

The pelvic bones can indeed be narrow or wide, however, wide bones do not always make everyone fat. The width of the bones is most significant for medical purposes, for example during pregnancy; the opinion that women with a wide pelvis have an easier birth is fully justified and in practice this is actually what happens.

Should having a wide bone be considered a death sentence, inevitable weight gain and the ineffectiveness of all known diets in the fight against one’s physiologically determined figure? Of course, you can gain weight, consider yourself fat and not try to correct the situation, and live fat for many years. But this is just one of the options.

You can go another way force yourself to give up unhealthy foods and start moving more. The second path is more difficult, but it is no less difficult to learn to love yourself. Maybe this is precisely the reason, in the unwillingness to take care of oneself, to let everything take its course, blaming one’s big bones and the hereditary factor for all the troubles.

Everyone chooses their own path and decides for themselves in which body they are more comfortable. Although, it is much better to feel in a thinner body; movements and gait become light and unencumbered extra pounds. You can be attractive even with a big bone, but not every woman can cope with her own laziness and love herself, hence all the problems, dissatisfaction with her appearance.

Everyone has a chance to lose weight, but not everyone can use it correctly, sometimes they simply ignore it.

Content

The overwhelming number of overweight people, when complaining about their problems, consider their own physique to be an obstacle to solving them. You can often hear the following judgments: “I’m not fat, it’s a natural feature - I have such a bone!”

Big bones or excess weight?

The supposedly wide bones are blamed by those who are unable to part with extra pounds: “If I were, like my friend, thin-boned, then I wouldn’t have to lose weight, but anyway, because of the wide bones, you will never become slim!”

How to tell if you have a wide bone

So what kind of bone is this? Who can be called its owner? And how does body composition affect slimness?

To determine the harmony of the human body, it is customary to use a criterion called the Solovyov index. Determining the type of constitution is quite simple. You just need to measure the volume of your own wrist.


In general, a ruler or measuring tape is not even necessary. Measurements can be taken using your own fingers, clasping the left wrist with the second rook and paying attention to the position of the thumb and index finger.

  • Fingers touch in people with normal physique.
  • If you can’t connect your fingers, the person is of the hypersthenic type.
  • And the fingers that overlap each other indicate that we are dealing with an asthenic person with thin bones.

The mirror can also tell you about your type.

In asthenics, vertical dimensions prevail over horizontal parameters. Such people have long limbs and necks, elongated phalanges of the fingers, and often poorly defined muscles.

People normal build proportional.

And hypersthenics are characterized by the predominance of transverse parameters over longitudinal ones. The skeleton of such people is heavy, the legs are often short, and the hips, rib cage and the shoulders are broad.

But a heavy bone is not a diagnosis, much less a sentence. The way a person looks, whether he is obese or slim, 4/5 depends on his lifestyle, and not on his congenital characteristics.

Catchphrase: “I’m not fat, I’m just a big bone!” - you can often hear from those who wear large clothing sizes. Can skeletal structure really affect overall body weight and body fat? Let's try to understand this issue and compare the various theories that are popular these days.

Body types

Dr. Soloviev offers us an interesting classification of body types. In his theory, this researcher proposes three types: asthenic (thin-boned), normosthenic (having bones of medium thickness) and hypersthenic (broad-boned). You can determine whether a person has a wide bone or a thin one by measuring the wrist with a measuring tape. The girth of this part of the body is less than 15 centimeters in women and 18 in men is considered minimal and characterizes a type with a thin-boned physique. The figure is up to 17 cm for representatives of the fair sex, and up to 20, respectively, for representatives of the stronger sex, suggesting that the bones are of medium thickness. If the measurement turns out to be more than 17 (women) or more than 20 centimeters (men), then the type of build is broad-boned.

Other ways to determine your type

The simplest and less accurate way to understand what kind of physique nature has given you is to clasp the wrist of your left hand with the thumb and index finger of your right hand. Accordingly, if their tips meet, you are a normosthenic. If the fingers overlap, the person is asthenic. In hypersthenics, the fingers do not touch. You can roughly recognize your body type visually by examining the general outline of your figure. Asthenics usually have limbs and all vertical lines that look elongated against the background of horizontal ones. Normosthenics are those about whom we can confidently say that their figure is proportional. And “broad bone” is a popular definition for those who have noticeable shoulders, chest, and wide hips. At the same time, a person is not necessarily overweight; even if he is quite slim, it is the horizontal lines that attract attention.

Big bones or slow metabolism?

It is very easy to calculate a predisposition to obesity at the genetic level without laboratory analysis. It is enough to look at the ancestors of a particular person. If several people in a family are overweight, most likely the children will be familiar with this problem firsthand. However, we should not forget about such a factor that influences the rate of appearance of fat deposits as metabolism. Surely you have met thin people who are not used to denying themselves the pleasures of food, as well as those who are constantly on fashionable diets to no avail. In most cases, the explanation for both phenomena lies precisely in metabolic rate. The faster the metabolism, the fewer calories received are stored in fat tissue, and vice versa.

Predisposition to obesity: real or fictitious

Usually people who say about themselves that they have a wide bone are those who are already dissatisfied with their figure and cannot correct it on their own. What to do in this case? First, you should try to assess the extent and severity of the problem. If a person has tried dieting several times and gone to the gym twice, but there is no effect, most likely the problem lies in the inability to choose on their own. suitable system losing weight and following all its rules. It’s a completely different matter if the power control is constant, as well as physical exercise, but the kilograms don’t go away. But is the wide bone really to blame for this? Photos of people who made their figures perfect on their own decorate the lobby of any sports center. Do you think that everything worked out naturally for each of them and that their bones were naturally narrow? Main secret success in the struggle for harmony - determination and perseverance. But if nothing works out for you, this is a reason to undergo a full examination, and then find good specialist nutritionist and fitness instructor. In fact, excess weight can be a sign of many serious chronic diseases, and if you are unable to lose weight, it really makes sense to turn to specialists.

How to lose weight if you have wide bones? Photos are great motivation

Main factors successful weight loss are regular physical activity and a rational approach to nutrition. Start with detailed study your figure today, think about which zones you need to work on - this will make it easier to create a training program. Great motivation - take a photo in full height, write down measurements of the main volumes and total body weight on the day you decide to lose weight. Do not scold yourself under any circumstances, think positively. Tell yourself: “This is me today, and tomorrow I will become even better!” By the way, sometimes a girl’s wide bones (photo in the middle of the article) can even look quite seductive. Take, for example, the feminine hourglass figure. For those with thin bones, it is very difficult to significantly increase hip size. In order to correct the shape of your own body, it is not enough to work out in the gym for three months or go on a diet for two weeks. You will have to fight for slimness throughout your life, devoting sufficient time to fitness and monitoring your diet. However, we are not talking about strict restrictions. You must learn to enjoy healthy food and be able to give up most of the useless dishes.

Truth and fiction about broad bone

In traditional medicine, there is no recognized definition and classification that allows one to accurately determine whether a person has a wide or narrow bone. This concept It is more often used among people, sometimes in proprietary weight correction methods. Even in the classification of body types, differences in bone thickness do not directly indicate a tendency to be overweight. Even asthenics or normosthenics can be overweight, and among hypersthenics there can be very thin people, including those suffering from underweight. However, the concepts of “narrow or wide pelvic bones” are actively used in medicine. Most often, the size of the bones in this area is of interest to doctors when monitoring pregnancy and predicting childbirth; there are special standards and even a special tool for measuring all significant parameters.

How many times have we blamed our big bones for our inability to lose weight? How many times have we blamed heredity, and not the lack of sports and willpower available? extra pounds. We decided to find out whether all these accusations have legal grounds or whether the big bone is just another excuse.

Yuri Glazkov

Yuri Glazkov, Ph.D., orthopedic traumatologist at Central Clinical Hospital No. 2 named after. N. A. Semashko, member of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS):

U different people bones can actually have O greater or less thickness. This is determined by the type of constitution. There are three types:

Asthenic (hyposthenic) - when a person has thin bones;

Normosthenic - bone of medium thickness;

Hypersthenic - thick bone.

People with an asthenic body type have narrow shoulders, thin wrists, and a sharp intercostal angle. Hypersthenics have broad shoulders, large body circumferences in different places, including on the limbs, obtuse intercostal angle.What type of constitution you have is determined by heredity. However, it's not just genetics that decides how wide your bones will be - it also depends on your lifestyle. If a person works a lot physically, especially since childhood, he is more likely to increase muscle mass and bone width. To understand what kind of bone a person has, it is enough to take several measurements. The easiest way to determine the type of constitution is by the wrist. Measure its circumference with a measuring tape:

Asthenic - up to 17.5 cm in men, up to 15 cm in women;

Normostenic - 17.5-20 cm in men, 15-17 cm in women;

Hypersthenic - above 20 cm in men, more than 17 cm in women.

How does bone thickness affect weight loss?

If by losing weight we mean reducing fat, rather than total body mass, then no large bone can interfere with this process. However, a hypersthenic type of constitution can distort the results of measurements of body mass index (BMI), an indicator that is used to diagnose obesity. It is calculated using the following formula:BMI = weight (kg) / height squared (m).If after calculations it turns out to be more than 25 kg/m2, this indicates overweight, and if 30 kg/m 2 - first degree obesity. But it may also be that in reality a person does not have any obesity - he just has a wide bone. Therefore, you need to assess the condition of your figure not only by calculating your weight or body mass index, but also by simply looking in the mirror.

At the same time, people have every right to write off heavy weight on a wide bone. Indeed, bones are much heavier than fat. Bone density is 2-2.5 kg per liter, depending on the degree of mineralization. The density of adipose tissue is only 920 g/l. Therefore, a person with a hypersthenic physique with a normal figure can weigh more than an asthenic person with first-degree obesity. But if a person talks about a wide bone at a time when he has a clearly visible barrel-shaped stomach, obviously this is nothing more than an excuse for his tendency to overeat.

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.

Dry, fat-free and dehydrated human skeleton(that is, what will remain of you and me in this world) average weighs 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 course school curriculum, what is density - 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. How big a difference can there be and what does it depend on?

Bone mineral density can change with age (including due to osteoporosis), concomitant diseases, and nutrition (decreases with poor nutrition, and vice versa with adequate nutrition). Bone density also depends on weight loss or weight gain: scientists have calculated that For every 1 kg of body fat lost, an average of about 16.5 g of bone minerals is lost, in fact, when gaining the same 1 kg of fat, approximately the same amount is restored (Jensen et al., 1994,), against the background of the existing training volume.

We present the average normal values ​​of bone density, including data on athletes and athletes who are developing adaptation bone tissue to impact load, and an approximate calculation of the difference in grams between these values, so that you can clearly understand what significance bone mass density has for the total weight of the bones/skeleton.

Data on bone density in adults (173 people, 18-31 years), different types sports: runners (R), cyclists (C), triathletes (TRI), judokas and wrestlers (HA), football and handball players and basketball and volleyball players (TS), student athletes, non-specialized in sports (STU), and non-training (UT) ).

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 physical activity, nutritional status, body condition, presence of diseases, etc. But on average, it’s something like this.

Data on skeletal weight and bone density of people of different age groups:

BMC – skeletal weight in grams, BMD – bone density in g/cm2. BF – black women, WF – white women. BM – black men, WM – white men.

Let's take the data from the last table as an example and take the cutoff values: the lowest bone density (in white women, the case of the lowest density is 1.01 g/cm2) and the highest bone density (in a dark-skinned man, the case of the highest density is 1.42 g/cm2). This gives us a difference between the person with the lowest (lightest bones among hundreds of subjects) and the person with the highest bone density (heaviest bones of all) of only about 0.7 kg at an average skeletal weight.

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 produces its own shifts in various indicators of bone mass from person to person, but these indicators do not differ by 5-10 kilograms, but amount to on average no more than 2-3 kg from person to person.

1. Jensen, L.B., F. Quaade, and O.H. Sorensen 1994. Bone loss accompanying voluntary weight loss in obese humans. J. Bone Miner. Res. 9:459–463.
2. “Dear Lyle...”: bone density and training” by Znatok Ne.
3. Trotter M, Hixon BB. Sequential changes in weight, density, and percentage ash weight of human skeletons from an early fetal period through old age. Anat Rec. 1974 May;179(1):1-18.
4. Schuna JM Jr et al. Scaling of adult regional body mass and body composition as a whole to height: Relevance to body shape and body mass index. Am J Hum Biol. 2015 May-Jun;27(3):372-9. doi: 10.1002/ajhb.22653. Epub 2014 Nov 8.
5. Wagner DR, Heyward VH. Measures of body composition in blacks and whites: a comparative review. Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Jun;71(6):1392-402.
6. Nilsson M, Ohlsson C, Mellström D, Lorentzon M. Sport-specific association between exercise loading and the density, geometry, and microstructure of weight-bearing bone in young adult men. Osteoporos Int. 2013 May;24(5):1613-22. doi:10.1007/s00198-012-2142-3. Epub 2012 Sep 26.
7. Petra Platen et al. Bone Mineral Density in Top Level Male Athletes of Different Sports. European Journal of Sport Science, vol. 1, issue 5, ©2001 by Human Kinetics Publishers and the European College of Sport Science
8. Rothney MP et al. Body composition measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry half-body scans in obese adults. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2009 Jun;17(6):1281-6. doi: 10.1038/oby.2009.14. Epub 2009 Feb 19.
9. Tomlinson DJ et al. Obesity decreases both whole muscle and fascicle strength in young females but only exacerbates the aging-related whole muscle level asthenia. Physiol Rep. 2014 Jun 24;2(6). pii: e12030. doi: 10.14814/phy2.12030.
10. Human Body Composition, b.918, Steven Heymsfield, Human Kinetics, 2005, p-291.
11. Elbornsson M1, Götherström G, Bosæus I, Bengtsson BÅ, Johannsson G, Svensson J. Fifteen years of GH replacement increases bone mineral density in hypopituitary patients with adult-onset GH deficiency. Eur J Endocrinol. 2012 May;166(5):787-95. doi: 10.1530/EJE-11-1072. Epub 2012 Feb 8.
12. Locatelli V, Bianchi VE. Effect of GH/IGF-1 on Bone Metabolism and Osteoporsosis. Int J Endocrinol. 2014;2014:235060. doi: 10.1155/2014/235060. Epub 2014 Jul 23