Will the thigh gap hurt your health?

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Photo Credit: Cara Dawson

Even those people who do the same work outs everyday do not have the same body types.

The thigh gap is becoming a fad in teens this year. A thigh gap originated with “thinspo” (thin inspiration) tumblr pages and twitter pictures. These pictures show girls legs while her feet touch. The goal of the thigh gap is having space, or “gap” in between the thighs while standing like this. However, it has gotten past standing, even sitting down with the knees touching, which “potentially shows” a thigh gap. There are even many twitter pages poking fun of this called, “hot dogs or legs”, and might I add, most of them do look like hot dogs!

I have never had a thigh gap, not even as an infant, that is mostly because I do have muscular legs, and I am spanish. I have basically excepted my body would never look like that and honestly, I don’t care. However, I have heard girls, from academy and not, say they would do “anything” for a thigh gap and honestly that scares me!

Many girls try to achieve a thigh gap goal without any thought of the consequences to their body. According to the writers of Shape magazine, the thigh gap is only achievable to people with a certain bone structure. A girl with a thigh gap typically have naturally wide hips, and even then most of those girls have so much muscle in their thighs that their thighs can’t touch. And please notice my use of the word MUSCLE! ‘Naturally small” are what most girls who have a thigh gap are, if they have a thigh gap now, they most likly have always had a thigh gap.

“Unrealistic” is what shape magazine blatantly calls the goal of a thigh gap. When a girl without a wide- hipped bone structure tries to achieve a gap, the muscle in between the thighs go away. This is not because they are making the muscle toned, it is because the body is using those muscles as nourishment. It is easy to tell whether or not a thigh gap is natural, which can be seen through a lot of model pictures. Saying this actually reminds me of a quote I read one time, “when we see bones, ribs, and back bones on a dog, we say ‘Aw’, but when it is on a human, it is beautiful.” To me that quotes is very thought provoking.

If you have a thigh gap, it’s not because you are sick, it is probably because you are wide- hipped, like I said before, its a body type. If you want to achieve a thigh gap, don’t. Doing this without a wide hip bone structure will cause a lot of problems with your diet, and most imporatntly, health. So honestly, if you don’t have one now you won’t have one, which doesn’t mean you are not “skinny” or “fit” it means you have a different bone structure.