Cankles Become Latest Body-Centered Obsession

Women constantly obsess about certain parts of their body, especially those that they happen not to like, for one reason or another. Aside from that, there are also specific trends of things to hate on the human body, so to speak: the muffin top, the love handles, the saggy abs, and so on and so forth. In recent months, the least desired part of the body has been the ankle, if it’s heavier than normal and can be easily described as a “cankle,” CNN writes.

Cankles do not really represent a medical issue, although they may appear as a cause of several affections that may lead to the inflammation of the ankle. The term “cankle,” a slang coined from “calf” and “ankle,” refers to that portion of the lower leg where the calf meets the ankle, but there is no definition. Not long ago, CNN says, they were simply called heavy ankles or large bones, and were not considered that much of an embarrassment as they are today, when our obsession with everything thin and shapely is sentencing women with cankles to a lifetime in pants and long skirts.

The biggest problem is not women’s obsession with cankles, though, CNN reports, but rather the fact that they are willing to do anything to have their ankles reshaped again, no matter how costly or painful and completely disregarding the fact that there is simply nothing that can be done. Except in the case of overweight people, cankles are, most of the time, “God-given” and no amount of plastic surgery or exercise can make them look like “standard” ankles, experts say for the aforementioned media outlet.

“Things like diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular risks, sometimes just lymphedema. All of those can lend themselves to deformed ankles or what people are [calling] cankles.” Dr. Kathya Zinszer, a physician at Temple University’s School of Podiatric Medicine, says for CNN. She also recommends against plastic surgery ($4,000-8,000) saying the ankle is too important a part of the body to be messing around with it. “The foot, the lower extremity, has a lot of neuromuscular structures.” Dr. Zinszer says.

“When we think about ankles, we’re thinking about all the different ligaments that are there, all the structures. They handle a lot of our activities, our weight, and we forget they’re there until we’ve actually injured them or something has happened to [draw] attention to them. You know, feet get abused... We expect them to always be there when we need to do our activities.” Dr. Zinszer further explains, stressing the importance of learning to accept and love our cankles as they are.