How dead body (corpses) increases its weight?

It’s not so much that the body got heavier, but that its limpness makes it hard to hold onto. Picture carrying a 50 lb box of rocks versus trying to carry a 50 lb plastic bag of water.

This is before rigor mortis sets in, of course.

Shortly after death a body is likely to lose a certain amount of weight when the muscles relax and the bowels and bladder evacuate.
(poop and pee come out)

Well, how long are we talking? Being limp makes it seem heavier, but over time maggots and the like start moving in.

Welcome to Fluther. What a great first question. There is nothing like starting off with a bang.

I wondered the same thing, @Judi.

Before responding with an actual answer, can you provide some offer of proof to back up the assertion that you’ve made? While @Mariah‘s response is accurate as to “perception”, if you have actual evidence that a corpse does, in fact, weigh more after death than it does in the quick, I would be interested in examining that. Because I do not believe that to be the case in normal circumstances. Though I’m not sure, a drowning victim whose body is not recovered until it’s been in the water a few days may in fact weigh more because of ‘some’ waterlogging.

“Dead weight” seems heavier than live weight. This is obvious to anyone who’s carried a child piggyback then carried that same child after it fell asleep.

50lbs of sleeping kid is so much heavier than 50lbs of alert kid.

And that’s because alert kid is using its muscles to support it’s own body, and create a balance. Sleeping kid (and the dead guy) don’t care about your back.

That is what I have heard as well – live, conscious people adjust themselves and redistribute their weight subconsciously to help the person lifting them, so that they feel lighter than sleeping or dead people.

Because of the lack of normal muscle tension. A body is easier (if awkward) to carry while in rigor. A flaccid dead body just sort of oozes through the path of least resistance, and makes it really hard to carry them. They seem heavier.

A dead body weighs the same as a living one. The only difference is the center of gravity is no longer supported.

Both weighs equal