When we’re talking about fitness in general, you can always distinguish between three types of people. Those who are looking to gain more weight, those who want to desperately lose it, and others that just want to maintain it. Nonetheless, waking up one day and seeing the scale show the opposite of what you were hoping for can get pretty demotivating and build up a lot of insecurities. If you’re reading this article, it probably means that you’ve noticed a slight gain in terms of weight and wondering if other people will notice the same thing. In other words, is 5 kg weight gain noticeable?
Generally speaking, 5 kg weight gain isn’t noticeable, especially for taller people. However, this can vary based on height, build, and how your body decides to distribute weight.
In this article, we’ll talk more in-depth about if 5 kg weight gain is noticeable, and why it shouldn’t really be a concern.
Table of Contents
Is 5 Kg Weight Gain Noticeable?
Firstly, let’s try to put together a scenario that will allow us to better understand the answer. Imagine there were three girls (or guys) standing in front of you:
- The first one is tall, almost 6 feet, and weighs about 65 kg (140 pounds) which is considered a pretty average weight for a woman.
- The second one is short, about 5 feet 5, and also weighs about 60 kg (130 pounds).
- The last one is also short, however, she weighs 85 kg (190 pounds) which is considered overweight.
Imagine this, you got a pretty good look at them, and after a month, they all gained 5 kg, and stood in front of you again. In your opinion, out of the three, who do you think will look the most different? The tall girl? The overweight one? Or the short one? If your answer is the latter, then you’re 100% correct.
Short people will always have the most noticeable weight gain even if it’s a tiny increase. I know what you’re thinking, “but what about the last girl? She was also short, why wasn’t her weight gain noticeable?” Well, it’s because she was overweight, so a simple increase of 5 kg will not make a whole lotta difference since after you pass a certain point in terms of weight, you hardly notice a difference which is why overweight people put on more and more weight without even noticing.
Based on this little scenario that we put together, we can now understand that there are two main controlling factors that affect whether or not a certain weight will be noticeable, and that’s height and starting weight. Let’s further explain each one and add in additional factors that may play a role in this matter:
Height
Height probably plays an 80% role in deciding whether or not a weight will be noticeable. The taller you are, the longer your limbs and body parts are. This means that fat will have a lot more space to sit on and thus, slight increases like 5 kg won’t have much of an effect compared to what it would have for short people.
Let’s take a look at this graph from the United Nations University that represents the rate of weight velocity compared to height velocity. In other words, how weight gain is less visible when you’re taller and vice versa.
Here is essentially what you should know:
- If you’re a man that’s above 5 feet 7 (taller than average), 5 kg weight gain won’t be noticeable (or slightly visible if you’re skinny). If you’re shorter than that, then it will be easily noticeable.
- If you’re a woman that’s above 5 feet 5 (taller than average), 5 kg weight gain will be slightly noticeable and if you’re shorter than that, then it will be easily noticeable.
Starting Build
Starting build simply means the amount that you used to weigh before the increase happened (which is, in this case, 5 kg).
As I mentioned earlier, the main reason why the last girl who was short won’t have a noticeable weight gain is that she was overweight. If she had an average weight, then that 5 kg will be pretty visible to most people.
When overweight people pass a certain threshold of weight, they barely start noticing any change since they’ve been accustomed to the way they look and accepted the fact that they’re overweight. This means that anything between 2 to 5 kg will be considered a small fluctuation.
Another factor to keep into consideration is that being overweight is slowly becoming normalized. According to Obesity Reviews, a large portion of overweight individuals do not identify that they’re overweight and a large number of parents with overweight children fail to identify their child as being overweight and that’s because larger bodies are now considered “normal”.
Fat Distribution
As we all know, our bodies have the ability to do a lot of amazing things, they pretty much have a mind of their own, and they won’t necessarily go our way. One of these things is deciding where and how fat is stored and distributed among our different body parts.
If you’ve been blessed genetically, then your body will distribute weight equally and across all your different limbs and body parts so a 5 kg weight gain won’t be noticeable. If you’ve been cursed, then it will store fat in one single area like the belly or the legs so that 5 kg gain will be visible to most people.
I know what you’re thinking, “but how can I control this? I don’t want it to store fat in my belly.”, well… You can’t. As I mentioned earlier, the body has a mind of its own and it only listens to one thing, and that is genetics. Other factors that control this are sex hormones and age.
Conclusion:
So you woke up one day, checked the scales, and found out the opposite of what you were looking for, you don’t have to worry or panic! Everyone gains and loses weight every now and then and a mere 5 kg shouldn’t be that concerning. In fact, you should be grateful that you noticed right at the 5 kg mark before things get out of hand. You now know that you should change your habits, eat less, and start exercising in order to not gain any more weight.