Lower body obesity
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By Lee Sung-hun
The heat is on, quite literally. This past June was reportedly one of the hottest Junes we have ever had in Korea due to the rainless rainy season. Wearing shorts in summer time has become a thing out of necessity nowadays.
For the ladies, however, the pants length have gotten shorter and shorter, and “hot pants” have become very fashionable as we can see on the streets of popular spots around the cities.
Then again, there are quite a large number of women, who are hesitant to wear shorts due to “lower body obesity” (LBO) — a disproportionately larger lower body in comparison to the rest. Today, I’d like to discuss the different types of LBO and their respective treatments.
First of all, to treat LBO properly, we must look into the underlying cause for thicker thighs. The cause can be from either having high body fat, or from edema (which is sometimes described as “bloated”), or from having high muscle mass, or even from irregular structural issues.
The most typical case of LBO is unfortunately from having too much body fat. Generally speaking, when we gain weight mostly from not taking enough exercise but still consuming a large amount of food, the fat around the hips and thighs also increases its mass.
For ladies, estrogen secretion is activated especially post-puberty, and during and post-pregnancy. This higher level of estrogen promotes lipid synthesis in the lower body, which can lead to a disproportionate lower body. For many such people, their goal is not to shed the inches around the hips and the thighs, but they wish to lose overall body weight along with reducing the size of the abdomen, waistline, and arms.
As such, the treatment is for that of general obesity patients; regular exercise and eating less. If the patient feels difficulty in reducing their amount of food intake, there are oriental herbal medicines that can be prescribed to reduce appetite, and yet feel full.
To help the localized reduction of fat in the thighs, mesotherapy that uses distilled Oriental medicine has proven effective. Also, to reduce the dreaded cellulite, mostly appearing around hips and thigh region, mechanical stimulation using high frequency heat and acoustic pressure can be effective.
For those patients with edema induced lower body disproportions, they notice that their leg sizes differ from morning to evening, and wearing socks leaves very clear marks on their skin, and they are prone to cramp in their legs.
It is more common in those who work in the same posture (whether seated or standing) all day long, and enjoy their food salty. O
riental medicine views such patients as showing edema symptoms either because their vital Qi is spent, leading to insufficient circulation that accumulates an abnormal amount of water, or because the Qi of the kidney, the organ responsible for water excretion, is depleted, or because there is a Qi circulation issue due to stress.
The treatment for such patients then focuses on removing the stress from the body and promoting the circulation of Qi with aid from medicine, acupuncture and moxibustion.
For those with high muscle mass in the lower body, unlike those with high fat or edema, it is difficult to lose the inches around the thigh and calf. Resistance training, recommended for most obesity patient, can lead to even thicker muscles, and thus easier, non-strengthening type of exercises such as walking and yoga are recommended.
Oriental treatment can aid in shaping the legs with softer lines by relaxing the knotted muscles with acupuncture.
Irregular structural issues can lead to thicker thighs. For those with bow-leggedness (genu varum), if you notice that your lower abdomen especially protrudes more than the rest of the belly, and that looking straight at the mirror, the region right below the hip joints bulges outwards, chances are that they have thicker thighs due to irregular structure.
An incorrect posture such as sitting with the legs crossed, leaning on one leg while standing, or walking with an out-toed gait, and major bodily changes such as pregnancy and childbirth can lead to a shift in the pelvis. The result is a “saddle bag” shape where the pelvis tilts forward and femur rotates inward to shape the thighs thicker and pushes the flesh below the hip joint outwards.
Such patients can visibly improve their shape and size with posture correction; their thighs appear thinner and the saddle-bags disappear. Also, posture correction can straighten the legs as well, which can be a dramatic esthetic improvement for some patients.
Losing weight does not just mean that you have to skip meals and exercise for hours. The overall diet and weight-loss plan should be personalized and customized to improve your general health. Esthetic improvements are a great side benefit to that end.
The writer practices Korean Oriental medicine at the UN Oriental Medical Clinic in Hannam-dong, Seoul. He can be reached at sung_hun@naver.com.