Cellulite

I stumbled on to an article about cellulite and, shall we say, “the truth of how to get rid of it.” (Read that in a booming echoing voice)

I had to read it more than once just to understand what the article was trying to say. The formatting of this page is terrible. Full, long sentences are underlined and located directly after full, long sentences in bold. What are we suppose to look at? Which part is the point? Bad use of words like “critical” and “proven” do not help with the credibility of the article either. Whatever, I was able to get the gist of the article and it was this.

1. Cellulite is a marketing term made up by the beauty industry.
2. The lotions and gels that the industry try to sell you do nothing useful.
3. Spas and massages are equally ineffective.
4. Cellulite is not genetic and you can, in fact, get rid of it.
5. The only proven way to get rid of cellulite is to exercise, because cellulite is a visual effect of out of shape muscles.

I did a tiny bit of reading and found this:

1. The term “cellulite” was first used in the 1920s and became common because of it’s use by fashion magazines in the 1960.
2. After an evidence based review at Harvard medical School the conclusion was that all treatments are not really worth the effort. Basically there is no cure.
3. See number two
4. Not only is genetics part of the cause, but research actually points to specific, named genes that help determine if someone will have cellulite.
5. Other causes of cellulite include changes in metabolism, physiology, dieting too hard or too much, sex-specific dimorphic skin architecture, hormonal factors, the microcirculatory system, the extracellular matrix, subtle inflammatory alterations, and alteration of connective tissue structure. So, your muscle tone MAY have an influence, but that is only one cause, and a dubious one at that. Toning your muscles does not equate to changing the structure of the connective tissue, which is the only possible direct link between the muscles and the covering skin.

Why do I care about all this? I don’t really. The link to the article just looked interesting.