In the body of a newborn child, there are 350 soft and flexible bones, which grow together with age, and as a result, the human skeleton already has 206 of the strongest bones. Living bone contains 50% water, 15.7% fat, 21.8% inorganic matter and 12.5% organic matter. In fact, bones are made up of minerals - namely, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, zinc, barium, aluminum, fluorine, silicon, and so on. The density of all bones is the same, however, some people have a thin skeleton with thin fingers, small feet and hands, as well as narrow shoulders and a narrow chest. In such people, the bones, respectively, weigh less than in broad-boned people.
Bone weight has little to no effect on weight human body- the size of the muscle attached to it, which weighs more than fat, simply depends on the width of the bone.
To determine the thinness or width of the bone, you can use simple test- Just measure the circumference of your wrist. If it is less than 16 centimeters, the bone is thin, if it is 16-19 centimeters, the bone is normal, and if more than 19 centimeters, the bone is wide. At the same time, muscles and bones are saturated with liquids, which gives them a difference in weight in a particular person. In addition, the weight of the bones may depend on the type of physique, which is asthenic, normosthenic and hypersthenic.
Decrease in bone weight
Weight and bone density may decrease with age as minerals and calcium are leached out of the skeleton. As a result, bones become brittle, porous, and light, which greatly increases the risk of fractures and the insidious disease of osteoporosis. This is especially true of thin-boned people, and especially blondes, who are at risk of this disease.
Depending on growth, the skeleton has an average specific gravity of 7 to 10 kilograms.
To avoid age-related weakening of bones, you should consume plenty of dairy products and regularly exercise the body, since exercise strengthens the skeleton better than any calcium supplement. At the same time, it should be remembered that reduced bone weight is not always associated only with osteoporosis - various genetic diseases, improper or unbalanced nutrition, and even congenital defective composition of bone mass can affect it.
Facing a problem excess weight, many people justify their kilograms by saying that they have “heavy bones”. Scientists conducted an experiment to find out if this fact can take place, or is it just an "excuse" in order not to take care of yourself.
Normal healthy person the bone apparatus has a weight of approximately 8.5% of the total weight. That is, if a lady weighs 75 kg, then the share of the skeletal system will be only 7 kg. Of course, such a figure is unlikely to be significant for overall indicator weight. Therefore, writing off extra pounds for the weight of the bones is at least illogical.
It has been established that the weight of bones directly depends not only on their size, but also on their density. At the same time, the bone apparatus of women is initially lighter than that of men. Of course, factors such as physical activity man, his features of genetics. But these factors can change the mass of the skeletal system by no more than 10%, and this is a total of no more than 1 kg of the total body weight.
More recently, medical experts from Canada conducted a study and determined why human bones can differ in density.
An experiment-observation of young people aged 14-16 was conducted. Doctors examined and interviewed more than three hundred teenagers, primarily in order to determine the intensity of physical activity during the period of active development of the musculoskeletal system.
According to the results obtained, experts determined that those people who, in their youth, at least moderately engaged in exercise, later had higher bone density than those who were not physically active.
According to scientists, bone mass density in young people for last years constantly decreasing. This is due to the fact that adolescents pay little attention to physical activity, mainly engaged in computers, mobile phones and all kinds of gadgets. Therefore, the physical condition began to gradually fade into the background. Presumably, the hour is not far off when medical specialists will sound the alarm about the physical health of the younger generation.
Of course, it is very important to ensure normal bone density even in childhood and adolescence. After all, over the years, any person loses his bone mass. Bones thin naturally, and in medicine this is called osteopenia. As a person ages, the risk of fractures increases: bone mass loses calcium and other minerals, becomes less heavy, less dense and more porous.
What can you do to improve the quality of your bones? Experts recommend: physical activity, take courses of calcium and vitamin D, walk more often in the fresh air (especially in sunny weather). If you follow the suggested recommendations, then the bones will indeed become "heavier" - however, this is unlikely to cause excess weight: a person's body weight depends mainly on the amount of fat and muscle tissue in the body.
Where the excuse “I have a wide bone” came from is hard to say. But you can publish a text about how much the skeleton weighs and how much its weight can differ from person to person. different people.
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 in men and about 2.8 kg in women. In percentage terms, the skeleton occupies approximately 6-7% of the body weight in an adult.
Bone density makes adjustments
All we know from the course school curriculum what is density - and so, with the same volumes, the skeletons of different people of a person can have slightly different weights, i.e. Some people will have thicker 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), with concomitant diseases, nutrition (decrease with malnutrition, and vice versa - with sufficient nutrition). Also, bone density depends on weight loss or weight gain: scientists have calculated that for every 1 kg of body fat lost, an average of 16.5 g of bone minerals is lost, in fact, when gaining the same 1 kg of fat, about the same amount is restored (Jensen et al., 1994, ), against the background of existing training volume.
Here are the typical normal bone density values, including data for athletes and athletes who develop adaptation bone tissue to impact load, and a rough calculation of the difference in grams between these values, so that you can clearly understand what value bone density has in general for total bone / skeletal weight.
Bone density data for adults (173 subjects, 18-31 years old), multi-sport: runners (R), cyclists (C), triathletes (TRI), judokas and wrestlers (HA), soccer and handball players and basketball and volleyball players (TS), student athletes, non-specialized 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% in different people depending on the factor.These values vary depending on age, gender, race, level and type of physical activity, nutritional status, body condition, presence of diseases, etc. But on average, something like this.
Data on skeletal weight and bone density of people of different age groups:
BMC is the skeletal weight in grams, BMD is the bone density in g/cm2. BF - black women, WF - white women. BM are black men, WM are white men.
Let's take the data of the last table as an example and take the borderline 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 the difference between the person with the lowest (lightest bones among hundreds of subjects) and the person with the highest bone density (the 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
In the end, what we have: that the total mass of human bones, excluding fat and liquid filling, is something around 4-5 kg in adult men and 2-3 kg in adult women.
Within these same boundaries, the mass may fluctuate, depending on the density of the bone mass, but again, this difference will not be so significant, in any case - up to 1 kg, depending on the density of the bone mass.
By and large, talk about “broad bone”, “powerful skeleton”, which drastically affect the overall weight of a person’s body, “fat power” and genetic predisposition to increased weight gain, in fact, is not quite comparable with the real state of things.
Yes, the difference in height and build certainly gives its shifts in various indicators of bone mass from person to person, but these indicators do not differ by 5-10 kilograms, but are 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 Workout” 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 Clinic 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. May 2013;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
Is there a concept of heavy bone? There are different opinions about whether there are actually heavy bones or is it just an excuse for overweight people. Some people are convinced that they cannot lose weight because “they have a wide bone,” while others begin to actively engage in sports, and this really leads to long-awaited results. Notes only in the second option will require a lot of effort and patience. And in order to come to terms with the already existing state of affairs, a lot of work is not necessary.
So is it true that bones can get heavy? It turns out that in an ordinary person, the bones weigh approximately 8-9% of the total body weight. If we imagine that a man or woman weighs 80 kg, then the bones in this case weigh only 7.2 kg. Could such a result be the reason for the appearance of excess weight? Unlikely.
The weight of a bone depends on its size and density. And I must say different types bones are characterized by different weights. Often in the fairer sex, the bones are thinner and lighter than in men. Bone density is also not the same, because it is influenced by healed bodily injuries, greater human mobility, and genetic predisposition. But these variations can be a maximum of 10% within the bone mass, and this is no more than a kilogram for a person.
Also on the topic: How to catch the temperature on the thermometer?
What makes people heavy?
So after all, are there heavy bones in humans? In fact, the cause of excess weight is accumulated fat in the human body. This is a consequence of an excess amount of food or the reason is an unbalanced diet, which tends to be stored as a reserve for a rainy day. It is clear that there are more reasons why one thin person is heavier than another. Compared to fat, muscle certainly weighs more. Muscular people weigh more than thin and unathletic people.
A heavy person is denser, therefore, over time, his bones become heavier. Since the body of a fat person needs more support, it does not really matter whether it is a large amount of fat or a rather large muscle mass. Thus, a slightly heavier bone causes excess weight.
Also on the topic: Can baby teeth be removed?
Does a woman's bone get heavier after childbirth?
By the way, about the fact that the bones become heavier after childbirth - this is not true. If a woman breastfeeds her baby for at least four months, then her bone density decreases. And this, as you already understood, leads to the fact that the mass of the skeleton also decreases.
What type of bone do you have?
There is also a method for determining the harmony of the human body. Using it, you will know how to determine if you and your friends have a heavy bone. This criterion is called the Solovyov index.
So, determine your constitution by measuring the size of your wrist.
1) If for women the result showed less than 15 cm, and for men - 18 cm, then the person is asthenic, he has a thin bone.
2) The girth of the girl's wrist is 15-17 cm, and young man- 18-20 cm? This indicates a normal physique and average bone thickness.
3) If the volume exceeds 17 cm (for ladies) and 20 cm (for gentlemen), then this is a wide bone. And people with such volumes are hypersthenics.
In general, it is not at all necessary to use a centimeter tape or ruler. You can determine the volume of the wrist with your own fingers, if you grab the wrist of your left hand with your right palm, paying attention to the location of the index and thumb.
- If a person has a normal physique, then a large and index fingers will be in contact.
- Can't connect your fingers? So you have a hypersthenic type.
- If the finger finds one on the other, then the person is an asthenic with a thin bone.
You've probably already heard from overweight people once: "It's just heavy bones!" But with this myth, you can do away with it once and for all. Finally find out if heavy bones really exist.
How heavy are our bones?
Is overweight caused by heavy bones? This is a myth and lazy excuse of fat people. This has been confirmed by the Federal Ministry of Education and scientific research. The bones form the structure of the skeleton, which supports the body and allows the body to stand upright.
In an average person, bones make up about 8 to 9% of the total body weight. It would be only 7.2 kg at 80 kilograms. Not at all a reason to be overweight.
The weight of a bone is derived from its size and density. Thus, individual bones have different weights. In general, women have somewhat lighter and thinner bones than men. Moreover, due to high mobility, healed injuries, as well as genetic predisposition, bone density can vary. However, these fluctuations are at most 10% within the bone mass and are not more than one kilogram per person.
What then makes people heavy?
What really leads to overweight is the stored fat in our body. Which is a consequence too a large number food or unbalanced nutrition, which is stored as a reserve for a rainy day. Of course, there is another reason why some non-fat people are heavier than others. Muscle is very heavy compared to fat. So a muscular man weighs more than a thin and unathletic one.
Heavy people are somewhat denser and therefore bones become heavier over time. Because their body needs more support, and it doesn't matter whether it's too much fat or too much muscle mass. Such somewhat heavier bones do not cause overweight.
Can bone density be improved?
By poor diet or diseases such as osteoporosis leads to a decrease in bone density. As a result, damage to the skeleton and serious consequences for health. However, you can influence your bone density yourself. Through a diet rich in calcium, bones are strengthened. In addition, frequent and regular exercise also contributes to the development of dense and stable bones.
Researchers' opinion
Canadian scientists have found that the higher the load, the wider and heavier the bone. Before drawing this conclusion, they observed the physical activity of adolescents. Researchers claim that sport helps not to break down in literally. Not only muscles become stronger, but also the skeleton. It is known that a person has exactly 206 bones. All of them form a vertical column. Thanks to him, the body can afford to walk on two legs. The human hand is considered the most bony - it consists of more than 54 elements.
Tubular, short, flat and mixed - each bone has its own purpose, but the function is the same: to serve as a strong frame for the body. The worst thing that the skeleton can get sick with is “osteogenesis imperfecta” (crystal disease).
What contributes to the strengthening of bone tissue?
The structure of a person's bones changes throughout his life. After birth, it increases, reaching a peak by 25-30 years. From 30 to 45 years, bone density practically does not change, and after 45 years, regardless of whether a person is sick or healthy, a natural physiological process of rarefaction of the bone structure begins.
In addition to exercising, you should also include foods high in calcium in your diet to prevent bone density from decreasing. The daily intake of calcium for an adult is 1200 milligrams. Most of all it is in cottage cheese, cheese, whole milk, fermented milk products. If calcium is not supplied enough, the body begins to take it from the bones.
Some numbers
Where the excuse “I have a wide bone” came from is hard to say. But you can publish text about how much the skeleton weighs and how much its weight can vary from person to person.
A dry, fat-free and dehydrated human skeleton (that is, what will remain of us in this world) weighs on average 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 in an adult.
Bone density makes adjustments
We all know from the course of the school curriculum what density is - and so, with the same volumes, the skeletons of different people of a person can have slightly different weights, i.e. Some people will have thicker 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), with concomitant diseases, nutrition (decrease with malnutrition, and vice versa - with sufficient nutrition). Also, bone density depends on weight loss or weight gain: scientists have calculated that with the loss of each 1 kg of fat in the body, an average of about 16.5 g of minerals is lost in the bones, in fact, when gaining the same 1 kg of fat, about the same amount is restored by background of the existing training volume.
Here are typical normal values for bone density, including data for athletes and athletes who develop bone tissue adaptation to impact loading, and an approximate calculation of the difference in grams between these values, so that you can clearly understand what the value is for total bone / skeleton weight, has bone density.
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% in different people depending on the factor. These values vary by age, gender, race, level and type of physical activity, nutritional status, body condition, presence of disease, etc.
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
In the end, what we have: that the total mass of human bones, excluding fat and liquid filling, is something around 4-5 kg in adult men and 2-3 kg in adult women.
Within these same boundaries, the mass may fluctuate, depending on the density of the bone mass, but again, this difference will not be so significant, in any case - up to 1 kg, depending on the density of the bone mass. By and large, talk about “broad bone”, “powerful skeleton”, which drastically affect the overall weight of a person’s body, “fat power” and a genetic predisposition to increased weight gain, in fact, is not entirely comparable with the real state of things.
Yes, the difference in height and build certainly gives its shifts in various indicators of bone mass from person to person, but these indicators do not differ by 5-10 kilograms, but average no more than 2-3 kg from person to person.
Netizens responses
Guest
This means that the bones are denser than those of other dead-boned people, but a heavy bone has one or even two minuses, firstly, a heavy bone makes a person fat, and secondly, and for a girl, this is especially important, with a heavy bone, a person walks limping, barely rearranging legs, and non-plastic.
Anna
What nonsense, a heavy bone does not mean at all that a person is overweight, he can be thin, it’s just that the structure of the skeleton is not athletic and non-plastic, a person cannot “lift his leg”, junk is hard for him, and he walks with a heavy gait.
Svetlana
It's the 21st century, and people still don't know such elementary things! Bones weigh the same for everyone: 7 kg for women, 10 kg for men. If the bones, as they say, were “heavy” not in words, a person simply would not be able to fully move, the joints could not absorb all movements. The expression itself refers to people of dense physique. By the way, there were no full ones in Buchenwald.
Pie
“The human skeleton consists of about 206 bones, which in a healthy person make up about 17.5% of body weight. Muscle accounts for 43% internal organs≈ 19%, skin and subcutaneous fat ≈ 17.8%, brain ≈ 2.2%. These data are averaged and vary from person to person.
Uninvited Guest
It's like mine. With a height of 49 kg, I look large. Not complete, but some kind of wide. Even when she weighed 47, she was still far from thin in appearance. For all my attempts to achieve elegance, I get a zero result, because even with a small weight there is no elegance at all. In general, a disgusting physique, especially with short stature.
It's true. it all depends on the number of partitions in the spongy bones, the thickness of the bone wall, the content of calcium and other trace elements. Men have heavier bones than women.
GooD HaSH
Heavy bones simply have more weight. And when the bones are heavy, this is very good, because fractures and all sorts of cracks happen several times less often than in people with light bones. By the way, heavy bones can be not only in men, but also in women.
Nathilty
In everyday life, this often means the constitution of the skeletal structure, the bone tissue itself is porous and calcium and other minerals should normally accumulate in these pores, and due to multiple pregnancies, prolonged periods, when taking medications (diuretics, antihistamines, etc.) due to age-related changes, calcium is washed out, the so-called osteoporosis
All answers are generally correct, I'll just add, in women, bone thickness can be determined by measuring the wrist, unless you are severely obese, of course. Less than 16-17 bones are light, more heavy.
Bones cannot be heavy or light. Most likely, this refers to the type of physique. There are only three of them - mesomorphic - the so-called average build, people of this type are usually of medium height, they have moderately developed muscles, etc.; the brachymorph type suggests a wide skeleton, that is, the bones of this type are not heavier, but wider than those of other types. People of this type usually have wide hands, they have large feet, broad shoulders. And the last type is dolichomorphic. These are the elves. They have a fragile physique, usually long thin fingers, narrow chest. Determining your body type is easy - just measure your wrist. If you get a figure less than 15 cm for a woman, then you have a narrow bone, if from 15 to 17 cm - you have an average physique, if the value is more than 17 cm, then you have wide bones.
Olga
a heavy bone is a heavy bone. Wide bone can be light, narrow bone can be heavy. I have a wide and heavy one. As a child, when I was skinny as a bicycle, I always weighed more than my peers, of similar height and build. From there I know that my bone is heavy 🙂