What Being Fat Does To Your Penis

by Andrew Shanahan

First of all let’s quickly disappoint the millions of Googlers who arrived at this page after searching for “fat penis”. It’s not that kind of article. Sorry.

Still here? Good. We thought it was time to talk about penises. Specifically, we thought we should talk openly and honestly about what being overweight and obese does to your penis. It’s really not good news, so if you’re of a sensitive disposition you might want to look away now.

Still here? Good. You should consider this article part health warning – on which note imagine if they took a leaf out of the cigarette health warnings and put a picture of a less-than-impressive todger on the packaging of a Big Mac, surely a small price to pay to help beat the obesity crisis? It’s also a rallying cry for bigger men. Being fat does bad things to your penis and it’s time we dealt with that. So, let’s get our juvenile sniggering out of the way (that’s what comments sections are for) and begin…

Penis? What Penis?

Recently, a survey from The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience found that the average size of a penis is 3.6 inches when flaccid and 5.16 inches when erect. The Guardian helpfully had an interactive chart that you could use to determine how you compare, it has sliders and everything. For many overweight and obese men though, the challenge isn’t in determining how they compare, it’s in establishing if anything is there. 1 in 3 men are too fat to see their own penis and in fact, this one simple question has been proposed as a quick and easy diagnostic check to see how likely you are to contract a range of weight-related conditions. So, first things first – can you see your penis?

How Do You Measure Up?

Let’s get biological. The base of the penis actually starts well inside the body. You can check this out with the aid of a ruler pressed firmly against your pubic bone (pubic symphysis on the chart to the right). That’s actually the official way of measuring and involves acronyms such as BPEL (bone pressed erect length) and NBP (Non-Bone-Pressed). And the difference between BPEL and NBP is the fat pad at the base of the penis, and the more fat at the base of the penis, the less of said penis becomes visible to the naked eye.

The key stat that you need to bear in mind is that roughly speaking, *drumroll*

For every 30-50lbs of excess weight you will lose an inch of visible penis.

You can do the maths yourself (take our Health Report to find out how overweight you are) but it doesn’t take a genius to see that more of you that’s visible, the less of you Jnr is on show. Did you ever need a greater motivation to lose weight? You’re welcome. Keep gaining weight and depending on your starting position the fat pad and gut will gradually swallow your penis and lead to a condition known (genuinely) as buried penis (NSFW images).

But buried penis is just the start of the medical complications that your penis can experience when you gain weight. These conditions are often reported alongside weight gain:

Low self-esteem

If you are suffering from buried penis, or simply the extra weight you’re carrying isn’t showing you at your best, then it can affect your self-confidence. When your confidence is knocked it can impact on your entire life, not just your sex life and lead to stress, anxiety and depression.

Reduced stamina

Let’s be clear – just because you’re overweight, doesn’t mean that you’re not fit, but many overweight and obese men report that their overall health declines when they get fat. Thus, if your cardio-vascular output decreases then this can impact on your sexual performance.

Skin problems

When your penis is stuck among hot and sweaty folds of flesh it is a breeding ground for bacteria and this can lead to conditions such as thrush (courtesy of Candida albicans) and tinea cruris, or crotch rot. Please, for the love of all that is holy, never Google Image Search that phrase. Just. Don’t.

Loss of sensation

This can be a problem when the extra flesh from your gut starts squashing the nerve endings in your penis. FYI there are 4,000 sensory nerve endings in the end of the penis and around 9,000 in the clitoris #justsaying.

Circulation problems

And it’s not just nerve tissue affected by surplus weight: excess weight increases the chance of circulation problems, so the amount of blood that is delivered to the penis drops and you are more likely to suffer from some form of erectile dysfunction. Joy.

Conclusions

I think we can all agree that this has been a harrowing read. Writing and researching it has resulted in a near loss of my sanity, so let’s perhaps agree never to talk about this again. However, let’s finish with three things that you can do to follow Daft Punk’s advice and make it harder, faster and stronger:

Stop smoking. If you think that your weight is preventing your todger from realising it’s true glory then smoking is yet another level of horror on top of that. Trim your pubic hair. Yes, it’s only a temporary measure, but ultimately wouldn’t you take any gainz you can get? Lose weight. Welcome to MAN v FAT.

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