Your skin is by far the largest organ of your body. It really covers and ’stretches’ (pardon the pun!) from our head to our toes!

Our skin is flexible and pliable. It moves and morphs with us. Think of what happens to it when a woman gets pregnant, we grow taller, wider, heavier, and older - it changes and transforms with us. It responds and sometimes as the fibers that connect cells and tissue damage, break, reach their maximum elasticity, they break, tear, rip and leave dreaded markings, edges, bumps and scaly ’scars’ on the surface of our epi-dermis or outer-layers of our skin.

Stretch marks often occurs as our weight fluctuates. Skin fibers, cells, membranes and walls get pulled, stretched beyond capacity, demand, constantly until they ‘give’ and break. Both men and women battle this on-going tug-of-war. These ’scars’ our skin carry, show and tell the story and path of our lives. This physical evidence of this process is now the aftermath that we want and have to (some MUST!) deal with.

We conceal and camouflage. We try to get rid of them through diet, exercise, topical treatments and other interventions. Girls and women, men and young adults, even athletes can get them and not just women. Many online sources quote the statistics of occurrence as high as 70% of teenage girls and as high as 90%+ of pregnant women.

Puberty and growth spurts all contribute to leaving its mark on our skins as we grow up, develop and come into our own. Our bodies are not stagnant, but dynamic and on a path of evolutionary proportions. We change and morph and our skins are right there with us, taking on this challenge, some battles easier than others. Some inevitably leaves their mark – Permanently! The sooner we accept some of the fact and undeniable characteristics and issues of stretch marks (like once you have them, you cannot get rid of them, just reduce them) the better for all of us!

Many argue that hormones are to blame and that it is not just another weight problem! It is not only fat, overweight or obese people that have to deal with unsightly stretch marks!