Are your jeans making you fat?

I love wearing jeans. They are comfortable and fashionable, extremely versatile as they can be dressed up or down to look stunning. And they can be worn at any age with or without a belt, with flat shoes or the highest of heels and, of course, boots. The key is that they suit YOU as a unique individual and that they actually fit! This is where, unfortunately, wearing jeans can go pear-shaped.

Amazingly, some fashion designers are creating jeans with sewn-in mock tops of men's briefs so that they show above the waistband and the low-cut hipster jeans look as though they are falling off, whilst some girls' jeans now can be bought with a sewn-in mock thong top appearing above the jeans!

I am the wrong age to comment on whether this is attractive, acceptable or appropriate but my biggest problem is that, with a growing incidence of obesity, particularly with the young, most teenagers who insist on wearing jeans that are simply too small for them are creating a muffin-top of overhanging flesh. Maybe they like to look like that. Perhaps showing a 'muffin-top' is cool? I am yet to find anyone who thinks it is attractive. But there is a serious side to this fashion habit that probably many folk don’t realise.

When we continually wear an item of clothing that fits or ‘digs-in’ in a certain position, the fat that we all have around our body is squeezed out of the way. To check this out just take off your wedding ring and see the indentation made by your ring on your finger. It is because of this that women have a little fat showing above and below their bra strap and men have ‘love handles’ above where their trousers sit. This is unavoidable as we have to wear clothes that ‘rest’ on certain areas of our body,. If women wear a full brief or pant all the time, (it doesn’t apply if you wear a thong), they will see an indentation on the cheeks of their backside where the elastic around the top of the legs usually digs in a little. As a result they won’t like the shape of their bottom when they see themselves undressed. Wearing a thong will eliminate this over time. So, back to the tight-fitting hipster jeans.

Wearing low-cut jeans will have the effect of pushing abdominal fat upwards. The low-cut style necessitates that the jeans are tight fitting (or they would fall down) and the result is the creation of a muffin-top overhang. Wear this style of jean very regularly, and your accumulation of fat above the hip-band will be there, even when you take them off, and it will reshape your figure and reduce the slimness of your waist and make your stomach fatter. After all, the fat has nowhere else to go.

So what is the answer? Losing some weight will help as if you lose the fat it can’t be squeezed around as much. Vary the style of your underwear and wearing a thong is actually very comfortable once you get used to it – just buy the size bigger than you would wear with a normal pant. If you want to wear hipster jeans, just don’t wear them all the time. Ideally, vary the hip/waist band height with differently fitting jeans. And lastly, regularly undertake some aerobic exercise which will help burn body fat and do some stomach flattening exercises so that you tone up that area.

Check out our website for details of my DVDs or our diet and fitness classes which will help you achieve that.