What's up with Oafs?

[Anotu]

I've noticed that while character body types vary a lot, for some reason medieval farm oafs invariably have the incredibly overweight body type. What's up with this? From the description of the background it sounds like their entire life was one of manual labor, and I can't imagine common farmers and laborers on feudal worlds would have had an overabundance of food to indulge in. The way it seems to me, the oafs should be some of the most well-built characters for all the physical work they have done. Does anyone have any ideas as to why they look the way they do?

[Kagemusha12]

The body type definitely fits to the definition of "Oaf" in the urban dictionary

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Oaf

[Anotu]

Sometimes people can call others oafs to say that they are fat, but the word the word primarily refers to people being unintelligent and clumsy. It fits the theme of the farm oaf background pretty well, being characters who were not educated on a backwards world and worked in labor requiring a lot of brute force. If the name 'oaf' is the reason for making the characters all very overweight, I find that very confusing! I imagine farmers would need to be much fitter and stronger than the medieval lord or glitterworld artist counterparts, who all end up being buff or slender for me.

[cultist]

I never noticed, but I can't imagine there are no fat feudal peasants. They shouldn't all be fat though, that's just weird.

[MsMeiriona]

The fat is only the surface, they haul their weight twice over easily, you need bulk to do it. Obviously.

[Pax_Empyrean]

The way it seems to me, the oafs should be some of the most well-built characters for all the physical work they have done.

I never noticed, but I can't imagine there are no fat feudal peasants. They shouldn't all be fat though, that's just weird.

Feudal agriculture tended to have people scraping the boundary of subsistence except during times of particularly warm climate (the early Middle Ages), and any excess likely went to the Lord. You'd likely never see one that was particularly fat or with a bodybuilder's physique; they just didn't have the nutrition for it.

The most well-built people in Feudal societies were likely the lesser nobility: knights and such. These were the people with both access to good (for the time) nutrition and lifestyles that involved a lot of physically demanding activity.

[Anotu]

You'd likely never see one that was particularly fat or with a bodybuilder's physique; they just didn't have the nutrition for it.

The fat is only the surface, they haul their weight twice over easily, you need bulk to do it. Obviously.

Both of these are good points, I don't think the oafs should necessarily have bodybuilder physiques. I think it would just be more sense to give them a 'burly' body type, representing something leaning more towards a barrel-chested build of the sort you see in strength contests for carrying tires or pulling cars, not the sculpted physique of a bodybuilder.

[DariusWolfe]

Something to consider... Go watch one of those Ultimate Strong Man competitions. Almost never will you see sculpted muscle or the athletic taper. Typically very strong people are built more like barrels than bodybuilders, and it's not uncommon for them to carry a good layer of fat along with their muscle.

Honestly, the body styles just need a little more variety, though it's hardly likely to be a priority.