While it's true that the internet is still a mean and terrible place (even for the most powerful and Grammy-winning among us), there's no denying we've come a long way since the dawn of the thigh-gap obsession and that godawful "belly button challenge." More and more, the denizens of the interwebs are — ever so slowly — beginning to acknowledge that bodies are all different, and that that's pretty cool. (We'll happily take a little credit for that sea change, but we're not alone.) Case in point: the latest trend of body-part pics on Instagram, which celebrates the "hip dip."
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No, it's not a dance move — a "hip dip" is just a cutesy term for an indentation that may or may not exist between your hips and your thighs. Pretty ordinary, except for the fact that apparently women have been embarrassed about and trying to eliminate this natural shape. Personal trainer Kelly Bakewell wrote on Instagram, "I've had clients asking how to get rid of them, [but] hey are very normal!"
“So yesterday I learned that #hipdips or #violenhips[sp] are a thing,” wrote @paulagoestobrizzle, according to People. “Like it’s a body type. I’ve spent my life lusting after perfectly rounded hips, when actually it’s to do with my skeleton. Nothing to do with weight or fitness. CRAZY.” Since rounded-hip hourglass bodies have often been portrayed as ideal in recent media, women have gone to great and often dangerous (ahem, waist trainers) lengths in an attempt to achieve that shape — for no reason other than that it's somehow perceived as "on-trend."
But the hip dip is not only totally normal; it's also not something you can "get rid of." It's nothing more than the place where your femurs connect to your pelvis — and the "dip" shows up on a wide variety of body shapes and sizes. “Gluteus medius isn’t a meaty muscle," Bakewell adds, explaining that "it wouldn’t really be able to be built up to help with a dip...Be proud ladies.”
"I don't know why or at what point I was taught to hate them, but I was, and I'm working on unlearning it," wrote athlete Sophia Van Leeuwen on her Instagram. "It's really helped me seeing other girls on here post about theirs and NORMALIZING it. So here are mine!"
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Below are some of the beautiful hip dips gracing our Instagram feeds today. We'll just be over here listening to Freak Nasty and celebrating ours.