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Causes Of Cellulite

The higher your levels of the female hormone, oestrogen, the more likely you are to have cellulite. (Who said life was fair?) We have strategies to help.

Fact 1: Women get cellulite, men don't. Fact 2: Women have different hormones to men - we have lots of oestrogen in our bodies, men don't. Fact 3: Many women complain that cellulite gets worse when they are pregnant or soon afterwards - a time when oestrogen increases. It's no surprise, then, that many of the boffins who have been trying to work out what causes crinkley bottoms favour the theory that it has a lot to do with female hormones.

Oestrogen is also linked to fat and the way it is stored in the body. If women put on weight their bodies produce more oestrogen, and those with high levels of oestrogen tend to have extra fat around their bottom, hips and thighs - i.e., they're pear shaped.

If this sound like you, look on the bright side. You are a fertility goddess. Research has revealed that pear-shaped women could be more fertile than their snake-hipped sisters. One study, involving 500 women between the ages of 20 and 42, showed that pregnancy rates among the pear-shaped group were around double that of the non-pears.

You can probably blame it all on the cavemen. Mrs Flintstone needed to store enough fat on her body to not only survive lean times herself, but support a pregnancy and create the next generation. Who knows - maybe cellulite saved the human race!

Oestrogen also encourages fluid retention, which some experts believe is key to causing cellulite, with water trapped between fat cells.

Low-fat, low fad diet

We can't really control how much oestrogen we've got or where our body stores fat, but we can give it less fat to store. If you have the sort of body that seems to hang on to every molecule of fat as if it was expecting a famine at any moment, following a diet that's healthy but low fat makes sense.

When it comes to food choices, knowledge is power. You may already have a good grasp of which foods are naturally high, medium or low in fat, but if you don't, it's worth absorbing as much information as you can - it'll make shopping, cooking and choosing from menus so much quicker and easier!

There is no need to buy any special 'diet' foods, or follow specific diet regimes unless you want to. Simple strategies such as cutting down on the obvious high-fat foods such as cheese, butter, full-fat milk, bacon and burgers (make sure you're getting your protein and calcium elsewhere) and piling on the fruit and vegetables, which have massive health benefits anyway, can make a big difference.

We all need some fat in our diets, but most of us are getting much more than we need. Part of the problem is our reliance on ready meals, and stuff in packets, cans and boxes - processed foods are often higher in fats than we realise. The ideal solution, and the one that's the healthiest for all of us, is to eat more fresh food and cook more, rather than opening packets and shoving the contents in the microwave, then at least we know what we're eating.

Sometimes we could all do with an instant dinner, but before you yell 'I don't have time to cook!' remember that we've been partly fooled into thinking we don't have time by a multi-million pound convenience food industry. How much time does it really take to throw together a salad or rustle up a five -minute stir fry? (Despite it's name, stir fry uses hardly any fat - so invest in a wok!)

Finally, beware of buying low-fat versions of foods, such as yoghurts - these often have lower fat but more sugar, which won't do your cellulite any good either.


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