Overweight vs. Big-Boned

Research recently released from North Carolina State University could possibly offer a relief to "overweight" individuals world-wide. As many obease individuals might verify, losing weight often proves to be extremely difficult, and even seemingly unnatural. The argument that one is "big-boned" or simply has a larger frame and not necessarily higher body fat is often dismissed by the average person, regarding it as an excuse for lacking the ambition to take on the responsibility of a strict diet.

According to the University's research, studies show that the wider the shaft of an individual's femur, the heavier the individual would weigh. The study was preformed on the femurs of one hundred and twenty one Caucasian males. Through consolidating the study to only white males the researchers were able to weed out any discrepancies that would have been inherent in race or gender.

The relationship between the characteristic of the femur and the weight of the individual is still a controversial one. The historic argument of the hen and the egg continuously comes into play in this contentious debate. One might argue that while indeed an overweight individual is bigger-boned, he/she has developed those larger appendages in response to the need to support the extra body weight. Overweight individuals move and carry themselves differently from the average person, and thus would need to compensate for bearing a greater mass. If this were indeed the case then being bigger-boned would not be the cause of weighing more, but instead a side effect of obesity. Despite the pending areas of controversy, one fact remains valid; regardless of all else, overweight individuals truly are bigger-boned.