Since I hit puberty and my body transformed from a walking twig into a young woman with wide hips, breasts and hip dips, anatomically known as trochanteric depression. So sit down, buckle up, and get ready for a short anatomy lesson.

Hip dips, hip dents, violin hips, figure 8 body shape, shelf hips, high hips, whatever you want to call them, are not a deformity. Hip dips are caused by the shape of your pelvis as well as the position. Hip dips are formed when your pelvis sits higher than normal and an indent is created where your femur (thigh) bone meets your pelvis. I always thought that exercise could help me, but no. Not at all. Actually, if one were to attempt to get rid of their hip dips, they actually need fat to cover the area, so good luck with that.

I've struggled with hip dips for years but it wasn't until recently that I figured what they were called. I would try on dresses at stores, come out and show my mom, and I would always say, "I hate this. It's too tight and you can see my hip thing." Mom would always say, "It's just an indent from your underwear." Mom, if my underwear is causing a severe indent on my body, something's wrong.

My hip dips, as well as others, are even more prominent because I have extra wide hips. I have child birthing hips, as my Yiayia in Greece once told me. And on those hips, I have fat that just will not go away, which causes love handles.

I've spent 6 years hating this part of my body. No matter how hard I worked out, no matter the deliberate poofy dresses I would buy to hide them, no matter how baggy and long my shirts were, I knew they existed even if nobody else knew or paid that close attention to my body. I was insecure when it came to relationships because, to me, they're so noticeable and they're honestly the first thing I look at in the mirror each morning.

Can I live with them? Well, I have for the past 6 years and I've kind of assumed I'd be stuck with them forever, so I guess so. Can I love them? I don't know at this point, but I'm going to damn well try. I've even followed a handful of "hip dip appreciation" blogs, but this one is more current so go ahead and take a look and follow it!

Know that you're not alone and that you aren't a freak and you aren't deformed. It's natural. Think of it this way; everybody has cheekbones, right? Well, some people have higher cheekbones than the rest of us do but we all have them. It's normal. I'm not going to say the entire population has hip dips, but if you have a skeleton in your body, hip dips are a possibility. They're more common than you think. So start loving your body the way it is.