Can a Skeleton give an idea of someone's weight if used in forensic digital reconstuction?

Question

Does excess fat in the body warp the positioning of bones (particularly the skull)? And would only a skull be able to give an idea of someone's weight in a Facial Reconstruction?

This is just some (hopefully) interesting information on why I asked this:
A few months ago in my area, a body was found in the woodland. 6 months later and after worldwide enquiries, he is still unidentified. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-13837940 BBC News link, http://www.dumfriesandgalloway.police.uk/news/highProfile/canonbieBody.htm Local Police Website]
As the body may have lay decomposing for over a month, Forensic facial reconstruction software was needed and used to create a photo-fit of what this man may have looked like. From what I can gather from programmes such as "History Cold Case", this process only uses the skull of the subject. Looking at the photos released on the Police website, the man's trousers looked rather large, too large to belong to someone with a face as slim as the man in the photo-fit. If some extra weight was added to the photo-fit, his features would change. That's why I asked this question: if the man's features in the photo-fit are wrong because there was no indication of how much he weighed, then it's highly unlikely that he would be recognized.

billrussell42 · Accepted Answer

I don't see how, fat is not attached to the bone at all. 

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? · Answer

Weight/fat should not affect the skull although it will in time affect joints and bones.
But there are a couple of problems with your concern - the police description describes the stubble shown in the sketch, therefore the skull must have had some flesh on it.  The face looks as though the man had lost weight, which may account for the impression you have that his clothes look too big.  The man is stated to have been about 5'8" and the pants are not arranged to show the full length of the legs.  They do look short to me, but some men wear pants higher than the break at the shoes,  especially if they were obtained from a charity organization and he took what was offered/fit.
A better question in this case would be how much the fit is based on the skull and how much based on the remaining flesh and whether fat decays/melts/etc. away faster.

? · Answer

I'm not a forensic scientist or anything... But I'm sure that there would be impressions ( like i might be thinner, or might have dents in the bone where the fat was; I don't know) on the bone where the fat was, since fat is heavier than bone, especially if they're overweight.

Yeah I just read something that mentioned how weight affects bone size. So yes to your question.

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Can a Skeleton give an idea of someone's weight if used in forensic digital reconstuction?

3 Answers