Since sound is subjective, what one person hears as being a “fat-sounding voice” might sound completely different to another. This might be because it’s sort of a moot point to study in the first place. If you have a fleshy face, the fat surrounding your nose and your neck can also create differences in the way you sound.īut though the internet has shown a fascination with this phenomenon, science has been relatively mum on the topic. Having excess fat on the body can also place weight on your diaphragm and chest cavity, which can affect how you sound and how often you need to pause to inhale when you speak. When you’re out of shape, catching your breath can be difficult, and your lack of physical fitness can be revealed in the sound - and strain - of your voice. But it's more likely what you're hearing is the extra breaths or short sounds that people with low breath capacity make,” a Redditor named “ Chel_of_the_Sea” posted in the subreddit Explain Like I’m Five. “Fat does, indeed, affect the shape of one's throat and therefore the sound of one's voice to some extent. Those who can identify “fat people voices” describe them as having a certain breathy, labored quality to it or as if the person has “ a meaty throat.” People were commenting on the video mentioning that.” After she lost 80 pounds, her voice was way different. She had a distinctive voice before the fast. “In fact, there was this video where a YouTuber was fasting for weight loss. “Honestly, I can,” a user named “MarsBars” posted on the chat room, Lipstick Alley. To buttress their point, people bring up famous overweight musicians, like Rick Ross or Aretha Franklin, who, according to one person, has a voice that “sounds like something is stuck in her throat, pudgy sounding.” The consensus is almost always in the affirmative that yes, you can tell if a person is packing on extra pounds through their voice alone. You’ll find the question (or variations of it) posted on websites about choral singing (“ Will Weight Gain or Weight Loss Affect My Singing?”) in African-American chat rooms (“ Is it possible for your voice to sound "fat" or "obese?") on question and answer websites like Quora (“ Can a voice sound fat?”) and in multiple posts on Reddit. Whether a voice can sound fat is something the internet has been talking about for years. Her response? She weighed 235.Īnother man, who talked about his love for his local sports team, his hunting dogs, and politics, conceded to being overweight, too, after the DJ estimated his weight was around 300 pounds. The DJ called fat on her, placing her weight at around 250 pounds. One woman said that she played softball four times a week and that her favorite show was C.S.I. Over the next half-hour, interspersed between Top 40 hits, the DJ correctly guessed caller after caller’s weights. “He claimed he had ‘a gift’ for it,” Andersen wrote in The Huffington Post.Īnd he apparently did. Guessing someone’s weight by their voice isn’t uncommon, with a lot of people claiming to be good at identifying so-called “fat people voices.”įitness journalist Charlotte Hilton Andersen recounted the time she once listened to a radio DJ guess the weights of callers who called in to this show. Listened to a song that sounded like it was sung by someone overweight? Heard a DJ whose voice made him sound “fat?” Have you ever guessed someone’s weight just by talking to them over the phone?