(Warning: severe FA nerdery follows)
As a woman gets fatter, does your perception of her proportionate leg length change? If so, for longer or shorter? Or does it depend on just how fat?
For unrelated reasons I was trying to look up the average proportion of legs to the rest of the body. I never did find a clear answer (it clearly does depend on gender), but one thing that was interesting was people measured it in different ways. Some measure the leg from the crotch down (the inner leg), while some measured from the hip bone down (the outer leg).
I thought that was interesting because for women, getting fat can change how those points are perceived, but in opposite directions.
- For many women, one of the first places that they gain weight is right above the hip bone. This obviously doesn't really raise the hip bone, but it can make the hips look higher up the body, meaning that the outer leg measurement could look longer. (Of course, while some women always have a clearly defined waist to hip changeover, no matter their size, but some builds lose that as they get fatter, at which point you lose that visual marker entirely.)
- On the other hand as the belly gets fatter it blunts the ‘V' between abdomen and hip, which may cause the top to appear a bit lower, and later the belly could even hang lower than the woman's crotch, definitely lowering the amount of inner leg length that you see. At the same time, from the back the buttocks will grow out in every direction, including down, which will shorten the distance from buttock to ground, and may also obscure exactly where the crotch is, particularly when clothed.
I think I tend to notice the latter, the perceived distance from top of hip to bottom of leg. My wife does have somewhat long legs, but looking back I realize that tend to notice that more when her weight is at the higher end of her range, and I do tend to focus on that sweep from hip and down the thigh, calf, etc.
Does it matter? No. I just thought it interesting.
As a woman gets fatter, does your perception of her proportionate leg length change? If so, for longer or shorter? Or does it depend on just how fat?
For unrelated reasons I was trying to look up the average proportion of legs to the rest of the body. I never did find a clear answer (it clearly does depend on gender), but one thing that was interesting was people measured it in different ways. Some measure the leg from the crotch down (the inner leg), while some measured from the hip bone down (the outer leg).
I thought that was interesting because for women, getting fat can change how those points are perceived, but in opposite directions.
- For many women, one of the first places that they gain weight is right above the hip bone. This obviously doesn't really raise the hip bone, but it can make the hips look higher up the body, meaning that the outer leg measurement could look longer. (Of course, while some women always have a clearly defined waist to hip changeover, no matter their size, but some builds lose that as they get fatter, at which point you lose that visual marker entirely.)
- On the other hand as the belly gets fatter it blunts the ‘V' between abdomen and hip, which may cause the top to appear a bit lower, and later the belly could even hang lower than the woman's crotch, definitely lowering the amount of inner leg length that you see. At the same time, from the back the buttocks will grow out in every direction, including down, which will shorten the distance from buttock to ground, and may also obscure exactly where the crotch is, particularly when clothed.
I think I tend to notice the latter, the perceived distance from top of hip to bottom of leg. My wife does have somewhat long legs, but looking back I realize that tend to notice that more when her weight is at the higher end of her range, and I do tend to focus on that sweep from hip and down the thigh, calf, etc.
Does it matter? No. I just thought it interesting.
