I'm kind of wondering why Bethesda didn't make a lardy appearance available to Skyrim players.

There are three settings: Lean, Muscular, Pro-Wrestler.

However unpleasing and probably unpopular (Who wants to look fat in a virtual world?) maybe some people want the avatar to be an exact like of themselves.

Would anyone use the option (if available) to put "fat" texture on each character?

Not complete obesity, or simple chub, but areas of exact distribution (legs, hips, stomach, face, etc.) to apply gearth, in which to create a virtual character that resembles the real life player.

Two games that used the weight variable successfully with the visual and physical reprocussions (off the top of my head) include Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and recently, the Fable series.

And not only would this fat be appliable at the beggining, it could be lost and gained during the game, from eating [censored] food (Apple Pie, Horker Meat, etc.), or over-indulging Mead or Ale, and excercising, simply by running around, or engaging in battle.
Plus the different methods of weight gain, and weight loss, would directly link activity with appearance.
Example: Eating Pie makes the hips and thighs larger, drinking alot of Mead gives way to a "beer belly". Also, running thins out the core and legs, using melee weapons works out the arms, back, shoulders, abdomen, and neck. Tons of space for designation and specificity.

Would this variable be consistently realistic? Or drastically unneccessary? (Who wants to be overweight in a video game?) Is it supposed to stick to a fantasy-esque simplicity? Who would want to worry about all these very boring details?

I'm annoyed that my characters (Male AND female) lack "fluff" as they get "Heavier" - I want my max-weight, ugly Khajiit Thug to have flab-thighs and a beer gut (Not to the extent of Fish-Breath's, though).

Also, my female characters end up not having enough substance to them - Maximum Weight STILL makes them look like Toothpicks.

However, it should be fixed from the beginning - Fable's terrible because of the dynamic weight/appearance system.

Well said.
The Fable example was a simple version of the diet and fat variable used in a video game.
I want Bethesda to take that variable, and expand.

I want to make an Orc and make him look like my avvie.

Perhaps, being "fatter" would also disallow the player to carry as much weight, because of the natural lard weighing the avatar down.

Too much effort for so little gain, I can see entirely why this was not included in the game.

Plenty of fat people in the real world, don't really need 'em in my virtual one. Nah but I would like to see some fat-ass bartenders and the like. Can live without it either way.

I have a hard time seeing a "fat" character running around and doing what the dovahkiin does and remaining fat for very long.

These days heroes fast travel everywhere. They get fat.

I liked how Saints Row 3 implemented full body control with its triangular control and "appeal" slider. I had hoped skyrim would
have enough balls to try something like this, seeing how cold it is and how much food is available, instead of restricting us to
only popular and accepted body shapes.
Nobles of the middle ages were certainly not immune to getting fat. Hopefully it'll change with mods.

I wouldn't want to see this included as a main feature in the game, but if it was included in some type of 'hardcoe mode' it would make things interesting.

I was slightly confused by the "weight" slider to begin with. Surely it would've been better labelled as "musculature"

There should have been two sliders, one for muscles and one for fat