Does the size of a woman’s bones have anything to do with whether she’s “scary skinny,” fashionably trim or overweight?
Do small bones always mean thin body?
Actress Tara Reid, whom many think is scary skinny, once said on social media that she simply has small bones.
I can think of many small boned animals that are chubby or have a stocky look, and many big boned animals that have a slender look.
A guinea pig has small bones but is chubby. A giraffe has big bones but is skinny.
Ever see a thin guinea pig or a fat giraffe?
Tara Reid’s comment inspired me to write this article. Tara Reid is not thin due to small bones.
What’s your definition of skinny?
Ever hear of “skinny fat”? Tara Reid is skinny fat. It’s easy for me to see by her physical appearance that she has more body fat than does the fitness enthusiast below, even though the woman below is not “scary skinny.”
Shutterstock/ Lyashenko Egor
None of this has anything to do with bone size. Your amount of body fat is determined by calories in vs. calories out in combination with your metabolism.
If there’s a caloric surplus you will have excess fat and look it.
Some women, however, end up with more fat than they should have, while still being a size 4. This skinny-fat state is due to LACK OF MUSCLE MASS.
If there’s a caloric deficit you won’t look overweight and may appear thin. This has nothing to do with whether your bones are small, medium or big.
Bone density, circumference and length do not control how thick or thin your layer of body fat is.
The “calories out” part of the equation can be influenced by multiple factors.
• Exercise, physical activity
• Muscle mass
• Diet and eating habits
• Genetics
• Side effect of medication
• Presence of a medical condition
These six factors play into what your body fat percentage will be, and whether you look thin, slender, proportionate, buff, ripped, muscled-up, a little thick, a little chubby, stocky, moderately overweight, fat or morbidly obese.
Whether your bones are small or big do not determine if you’re thin or overweight.
However, strength training makes bones denser. But a denser bone is not a bigger bone.
To understand this, imagine a block of wood the exact same size and shape as a brick. But the brick is a lot denser. It’s not bigger. It’s denser.
There are slender hard-body women who used to be overweight and squishy looking. They took up strength training and cleaned up their diet.
They lost size but their bones did not shrink.
If I were to pile on 50 pounds of fat from overeating and stopping all my exercise, my bones would not get bigger even though my body would get bigger.
I hope that all of this is making sense to you, because people continue to believe that there’s a relation between small bones and being thin, and big bones and being big. NONE EXISTS.
