Body checking in a bathroom mirror is a weirdly universal experience. You’re looking at your silhouette, and you notice it—that little inward curve between your hip bone and your thigh. Some people call them "violin hips." Most of us just know them as hip dips. For years, fitness influencers pushed this idea that you could just "squat them away," as if your skeleton were made of play-dough that you could mold with enough Bulgarian split squats. It's a lie. Honestly, the whole hip dips vs no hip dips debate is mostly just a misunderstanding of human anatomy and how fat decides to park itself on your frame.
If you have them, you aren't "out of shape." If you don't have them, you aren't "better." It's mostly just luck of the genetic draw.
The Brutal Reality of Your Pelvis
Let’s get technical for a second. Hip dips, or trochanteric depressions, happen because of the space between your ilium (the top of your hip bone) and the greater trochanter of your femur. If your hip bones are positioned higher up or if your pelvis is wider, that gap becomes more pronounced. It’s a literal hole in your silhouette where there is no bone to support the muscle or skin. No amount of side-lying leg raises is going to grow a new piece of bone to fill that gap.
Some people have a "no hip dips" look simply because their pelvis is narrower or their hip bones sit lower, closing that anatomical window. Others have a higher body fat percentage in that specific area, which acts like a natural filler. But for a huge portion of the population, especially those with wider pelvic girdles, that dip is as permanent as your height.
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Dr. Joshua Zeichner, a board-certified dermatologist in New York, often points out that skin thickness and fat distribution play huge roles here too. You can be an Olympic athlete with 10% body fat and have massive hip dips because your muscles—specifically the gluteus medius and minimus—sit underneath that dip, not directly inside it.
Why We Started Obsessing Over This Anyway
Blame the "thigh gap" era of the 2010s. We transitioned from one body obsession to the next without catching our breath. Once the internet decided that a flat stomach wasn't enough, it started looking at the transition from the waist to the thigh.
Social media is a hall of mirrors. You’ve seen the photos. An influencer stands at a 45-degree angle, kicks one leg out, tilts their pelvis, and—presto—no hip dips. Then they exhale, stand straight, and the dips reappear. It’s lighting. It’s posing. It’s high-waisted compression leggings that yank everything upward to create a smooth line.
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Comparison is a thief, but it’s also a liar. When you compare your hip dips vs no hip dips in a mirror at 7 AM to a photoshopped image on a screen, you're fighting a battle against pixels, not biology.
Can You Actually Change Them?
Short answer: Kinda, but mostly no.
Long answer: You can’t change where your bones are. You can, however, grow the muscles around the area. If you bulk up your gluteus medius, you might fill out the upper portion of the hip, but ironically, making your leg muscles bigger can sometimes make the dip look more obvious because the muscle underneath sticks out further.
Fat grafting or "hip dips filler" (like Sculptra) has become a massive trend in cosmetic surgery. People are literally paying thousands of dollars to have fat sucked out of their stomachs and injected into that tiny gap. Surgeons like those at the Cleveland Clinic note that while these procedures work, they come with risks like fat embolism or necrosis. Is a smooth silhouette worth a surgical bill and a month of recovery? For some, maybe. But let's be real—it's a lot of work for something most people don't even notice on you.
What actually influences the look:
- Pelvic Width: Wider hips almost always mean deeper dips.
- Fat Distribution: Some people store fat on their "saddlebags" (lower) or "love handles" (higher), leaving the middle dip empty.
- Muscle Mass: Hypertrophy in the glutes can change the shape, but won't erase the bone structure.
- Clothing: Low-rise jeans cut right into the dip, making it look deeper. High-rise leggings smooth it over.
The Fitness Industry's Marketing Scam
If you see a workout video titled "10 Minutes to Get Rid of Hip Dips," close the tab. It’s clickbait. You’re being sold a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Those "fire hydrant" exercises are great for hip mobility and strengthening your abductors, which is awesome for your back health and athletic performance. They are not, however, a magic eraser for your skeletal structure.
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In the hip dips vs no hip dips world, the fitness industry wins when you feel insecure. They want you to buy the booty bands and the protein powder. But look at high-level sprinters or cross-fitters. Many of the strongest women on earth have incredibly prominent hip dips. Why? Because they have low body fat and high muscle definition. Their bodies are built for power, not for matching a specific aesthetic curve that was popularized by a Kardashian filter.
Let's Talk About "Hip Dip" Dysmorphia
It sounds dramatic, but the hyper-fixation on this specific body part is a relatively new phenomenon. Twenty years ago, nobody knew what a hip dip was. We just called them hips.
Now, we have "body checking" TikToks where teenagers are distressed because their hips aren't perfectly round circles. This is where it gets dangerous. When we treat a normal anatomical variation like a medical deformity, we're setting ourselves up for a lifetime of dissatisfaction. The "no hip dips" look is often just a result of specific genetics—specifically a "long" torso with a low iliac crest. It's not a fitness achievement.
Actionable Steps for a Better Mindset
Stop looking at your body in segments. You aren't a collection of parts—a thigh gap, a hip dip, a bicep peak. You're a functional organism. If you want to change how you feel about your hips, try these shifts:
- Change your clothes, not your body. If your hip dips bother you, wear fabrics with more structure or higher waistlines. Stop wearing thin, tight leggings that accentuate the one area you're self-conscious about if it's going to ruin your day.
- Focus on hip strength. Instead of trying to "fill" the dip, focus on the strength of your hip abductors. Strong hips prevent knee pain and lower back issues as you age. That’s a real, tangible win.
- Diversify your feed. Follow athletes, not just "fitness models." Look at how bodies move in the real world—at the beach, at the gym, in the grocery store. You'll realize hip dips are everywhere.
- Audit your mirrors. If you find yourself spending 20 minutes a day analyzing your side profile, it’s time to step away. Lighting affects the shadows in those dips more than your actual weight does.
The obsession with hip dips vs no hip dips is a distraction. Your bones are where they are. Your muscles will grow where they're coached to grow. But the gap between your hip and your thigh? That’s just space for your body to move.
Stop trying to fill in the blanks of your anatomy. There is nothing to fix because nothing is broken. Focus on getting stronger, moving smoother, and realizing that a "perfect" silhouette is usually just a lucky angle and a pair of Spanx.
Immediate Next Steps
- Check your posture: Standing with your weight shifted to one side will always make one hip dip look deeper than the other. Stand tall and even.
- Audit your workout: If you're doing "hip dip" workouts, pivot to compound movements like deadlifts and squats that build overall lower body strength rather than targeting a spot that can't be filled.
- Clean your social media: Unfollow any account that claims a specific exercise can "fix" your bone structure. Information accuracy is the first step to body neutrality.