4.Realistic people IV

This time the article deals with the differences between male and female bodies and the changes that appear in us along the process of growth and ageing.




The general shape of a human body is defined mainly by skeletal structure, muscles and fat.
Skeleton grows only up to the point at which a human reaches adulthood and remains pretty much the same throughout his or her whole life.
Muscle mass and the amount of fat may change for example due to exercise.
Being overweight or underweight causes change in the human body's shape as well as posture and walking style.

Clothing changes the appearance of the body. It may enhance the shape of the body. High heeled shoes, generally used by females, also alter body proportions.

Different shapes of the body:
Apple: The stomach region is wider than the hip section, mainly in males.
Pear or spoon or bell: The hip section is wider than the upper body, mainly in females.
Rectangle or straight or banana: The hip, waist, and shoulder sections are relatively similar.

Some typical positions in which the body can be: standing, sitting, kneeling, lying.





A Child
The proportions of children are quite different to that of adults. When they are born, babies' heads are extremely large in proportion to the rest of their body.
The head of a very young child makes up about a quarter of his/her total height. By the time the child is six or seven, the head is about a sixth of his/her height.
A child's head is rounder than that of an adult.
Humans are born with eyeballs at almost adult size, so a baby's eyes appear very large.
If a child is looking too old in a portrait, it may be because the proportions and location of the features are those of an adult.
The differences between the male and female body occur during puberty.
Before puberty, body differences between boys and girls are almost entirely restricted to the genitalia.





A Male

By the end of puberty, adult men have heavier bones and nearly twice as much skeletal muscle.
Due to the action of testosterone, males develop following facial-bone features during puberty: A more prominent brow bone, A squarer jaw, larger nose bone.
Some of the bone growth, for example shoulder width, is disproportionately greater than a female's, which results in noticeably different male and female skeletal shapes.
Broad shoulders and expanded chest are normal in males.
Males also tend to have proportionally smaller buttocks, bigger chests and wider shoulders. These make a V-shaped torso.





A Female

On women, the hips get widen and fat tissue increases, especially in the typical female areas; breasts, hips, buttocks, thighs. At the age of 10 years, the average girl has 6% more body fat than the average boy, but by the end of puberty the average difference is nearly 50%.
In contrast to males, on women a smaller nose makes for a fuller upper lip.

When women reach menopause (the typical age range for the occurrence of menopause is between the ages of 45 and 55) the estrogen produced by ovaries declines, fat migrates from their buttocks, hips and thighs to their waists and stomach.
The female body is narrower in the waist, than the male body, both in front and profile view. The waist is narrower than the chest region due to the breasts, and narrower than the hip region due to the width of the buttocks, which results in the hourglass shape.
There are and have been widely different ideals of female body in different cultures over history.





Ageing

The skin goes through many different phases as we age.
Women tend to age faster than men, due to the various hormonal changes they experience starting with puberty, then through pregnancy, and ending with menopause.
Some signs of ageing are:
Fine lines and wrinkles.
Rough skin texture, skin dryness and uneven skin tone
Visible pores
Age spots
The hair loses its pigmentation and turns gray or white.
The nails become thicker





Some hands



Some eyes





The previous articles: Realistic people I [link] , II [link] and III [link] .