Estrogen helps make women curvier than men by making their pelvis and hips wider, and their breast grow. Estrogen is part of your menstrual cycle, helps you get pregnant, and plays a role in helping you develop bones and grow hair. It also helps regulate your moods and impacts your brain development and structure.
Androgens, a class of hormones that includes testosterone, increase waist-to-hip ratios in women by increasing visceral fat, which is carried around the waist. But on the upside, increased androgen levels are also associated with increased strength, stamina, and competitiveness.
The authors point to estrogen levels, which rise during puberty and decline later in life, as the likely cause of the widening and subsequent narrowing in the female pelvis, in particular because estrogen is known to impact bone growth and development.
Along with progesterone, estrogen plays a key role in your reproductive health. The development of secondary sex characteristics (breasts, hips, etc.), menstruation, pregnancy and menopause are all possible, in part, because of estrogen. Estrogen plays an important role in other body systems, too.
Excess estrogen, also called estrogen dominance, can change your body shape, causing an increase in fat deposits in the area of your thighs and butt. This is what gives some women a “pear” shape, where the hips are far wider than the shoulders. Don't give up, though!
Estrogen causes breast enlargement and the accumulation of subcutaneous fat, especially around the hips and thighs, giving rise to feminine curves.
Estrogen causes a typical female fat distribution pattern in breasts, buttocks, and thighs, as well as its more feminizing effects. During the reproductive years, women get additional fat deposition in the pelvis, buttocks, thighs, and breasts to provide an energy source for eventual pregnancy and lactation.
With the onset of puberty, the male pelvis remains on the same developmental trajectory, while the female pelvis develops in an entirely new direction, becoming wider and reaching its full width around the age of 25-30 years. From the age of 40 onward, the female pelvis then begins to narrow again.
Relaxin levels peak at around 12 to 14 weeks of pregnancy. As the fetus grows in your uterus, relaxin helps your body stretch. It's helpful during childbirth when your pelvis needs to relax to allow your baby to descend the birth canal. Relaxin also helps to prepare your cervix for labor and delivery.
Human Growth Hormone (hGH) Human growth hormone (hGH) is a natural hormone your pituitary gland releases that promotes growth in children, helps maintain normal body structure in adults and plays a role in metabolism in both children and adults.
Although you can't spot-reduce fat in just one area of your body, you can trim hip fat by losing overall body fat. You can do this through regular fat-burning exercises, cutting back on calories, and toning your lower body.
Having too much estrogen, or not enough progesterone can be the driving force behind weight gain in the hips. Other common symptoms of excess estrogen include PMS symptoms such as heavy or painful periods, breast tenderness, fibroids, moodiness, bloating and other concerns.
While progesterone doesn't directly cause weight gain, it does increase your hunger levels which may make you feel like you're eating more and therefore gaining weight. But progesterone is just a small player in hormone balance and weight management. There are other hormone imbalances that may cause weight gain.
If you still have your uterus:
Progesterone is used along with estrogen. Taking estrogen without progesterone increases your risk for cancer of the endometrium (the lining of the uterus). During your reproductive years, cells from your endometrium are shed during menstruation.
Pain or dysfunction in the hip or groin are common in women, particularly in the child bearing or menopausal years. Female hips generally have more range of motion than male hips, and the hormonal changes occurring in this life stages are thought o contribute to the loss of support and altered biomechanics leading to ...
Research across a variety of cultures has demonstrated that men typically find the curvaceous female form sexually attractive. Other studies have shown that wide hips in women are associated with health and reproductive potential, so the attraction makes evolutionary sense.
Changes to the Buttocks, Hips, and Thighs
Extra fat also tends to accumulate around the hips and buttocks. This tends to be more pronounced in women than in men given the gendered differences in fat accumulation and distribution. Widening of the hips and buttocks can lead to a distinct pear shape.
Many women also notice an increase in belly fat as they get older — even if they aren't gaining weight. This is likely due to a decreasing level of estrogen, which appears to influence where fat is distributed in the body.
The pear body type is more common in pre-menopausal women and some men and is associated with estrogen dominance. Estrogen dominance causes toxic fat gain, water retention, bloating and other health conditions.
The main culprit behind weight gain in your thighs is estrogen. This hormone drives the increase in fat cells in females, causing deposits to form most commonly around the buttocks and thighs.
Estrogen, the female sex hormone, can cause weight gain whether it's extremely high or extremely low. Some ways to manage your estrogen are to get plenty of fiber in your diet, eat more cruciferous vegetables, exercise more frequently, and add flaxseeds to your diet.
Estrogen is involved when a girl starts puberty. During puberty, a girl will have breast growth, start to accumulate body fat around the hips and thighs, and have a growth spurt. Estrogen and progesterone are also involved in the regulation of a girl's menstrual cycle. These hormones also play a role in pregnancy.
'Estrogen helps shape an hourglass silhouette to signal fertility. As estrogen levels drop around menopause so fat tends to be redistributed around the waist.