copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

“Muffin top” is a fairly new word in the lexicon of things wrong with a woman’s body and a fairly new concept in what needs to be worked on and “fixed”.  A new word/phrase coined by those who are in the business of making money by increasing women’s consciousness of some part of the anatomy which  is declared defective, ugly and which needs to be made perfect.  We  should hate our muffin tops – they are caused by fat and they and/or their company has the way to make it go away for a substantial amount of money.

One never knows what the conversation will be at breakfast in any of our homes.  This morning’s choice of “muffin tops” at first seemed frivolous to me, but as it went on I realized this was something becoming very important to many women and men.  I would be on the verge of uncovering a bit of knowledge new to me that I could add to my health and beauty routine.   The conversation started in that direction because the youngest woman at the table was fretting over her ‘muffin top’.

The response to her fretting was the information that muffin tops come as you age and your frame shrinks.  The extra skin goes someplace and neither exercise nor cosmetics is going to get rid of it.  Dieting may make it thinner with less fat under the skin, but it will not make it go away and neither will exercise – unless someone out there knows how to eat and/or exercise to shrink skin.

Women of past generations wore girdles – even thin women.  Because this current generation has mostly lost touch with their mothers and grandmother’s, who they consider not as wise nor knowledgeable as their peers, they have lost touch with why women of past generations wore girdles.  Those older generations had to do something to make their garments look smooth and to hide that skin flap – which we now call muffin tops. The old becomes new again.  If only we could go back to having conversations with our relatives who are of an older generation we would be so wise!  You either know history or you are doomed to repeat it – someone actually said that in some history book!!

It became urgent in the discussion to explore muffin tops, because women and girls are now wearing jeans which sit on the hip – right under and emphasizing the muffin top.  Is it because emphasizing such a “problem” area can increase the money spent by women to hide it – eliminate it -mutilate it?  Not even plastic surgeons can rid you of your muffin tops.  You can get a scar around your body to cut out the extra skin, but it won’t last because as your frame continues to shrink your muffin top will return.

What to do?  No one had an answer.  One woman wore control top panty hose because that was the least intrusive way to keep her outer garments smooth.  Another wore a girdle because she wanted to make sure she had everything hidden.  The young woman, who started the conversation with an almost passing comment about feeling uncomfortable with her ‘muffin top’ showing, was the youngest woman around the table.  She was also the only woman around the table who wore those hip hugging jeans.  Aren’t they what started the movement in ghetto’s across the U. S. among African American young boys wearing pants which bag and hang down almost and sometimes definitely below the crack in …………?  Is that where designers’ got their inspiration for those hip hugging jeans?  Is that the direction in which those hip huggers for women are going?

She wore those instead of the jeans which went to her natural waistline – which is what she used to wear – because the advertisements are all equating those who wear those waist-high jeans as wearing ‘grandmother’ jeans and she didn’t want to look old.  (She was probably about 30 years old).  No one had any sympathy for her.  Everyone told her to get rid of those hip huggers and wear normal clothes for normal body shapes and she wouldn’t have to worry about a muffin top since ‘normal’ or ‘grandmother’ jeans hide your muffin top and give you a much nicer, softer shape.  Somehow, I don’t think she was listening – she was looking, instead at the picture of Jane Fonda in pants which are tightly fitted around the legs.  Since she looked as though she had short legs I wonder where trying to wear those tight-legged jeans will lead her?  Sleeping in a leg stretcher?

The woman at the table who impressed was the one who picked up our blog about liquid vitamin C.  She was using every kind of lotion on her thighs and her body from the waist down to get rid of the rapidly increasing look of fat breaking up under the skin – not wrinkles exactly, but a not so great look which only promised to worsen as time went on.  She waxed eloquent about liquid vitamin C.  It took a little while of constant use, which for her was every other day with a liquid Vitamin C overall massage after her shower, but the results were startling.

She did tell us the first two times she used the liquid C she had a bit of a problem with ‘peeing” – her word, not ours – but she just adjusted her water intake – drank a lot more water during the day – and by the third liquid Vitamin C massage she was fine.  She did not offer to show us the results, we had to take her word for the fact that the skin from her waistline down to her knees had dramatically improved – smoothed out and she was now happy about wearing shorts.  She could even look good wearing a swim suit without parts of her body being reminiscent of having cottage cheese under the skin.  That was important to her because she spent the winters in resort areas where looking good in a swim suit was important.

She put a little of her liquid Vitamin C in our saucers and we all tried it.  I must say the results of just one trial were impressive.  The liquid Vitamin C became sticky after a while so we had to rinse it off – one woman asked for olive oil and put the olive oil on her face after she had the liquid C on for several minutes.  She had a grand facial massage tapping all around her face for quite some time – until someone else got a bit irritated at having to watch and she left the table.  When she came back, her face looked fabulous.  She had rinsed off the liquid Vitamin C and olive oil with cold water and just patted her skin dry.  So very quietly I resolved to make that a bi-weekly regimen.

We went on to note that Dr Oz has finally caught up to Bettina Network’s blog.  One of his recent shows talked about not using soap – ever.  I went back and searched the blog and found we had talked about that months and months ago.

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