Growing up, I was told that multiple things were wrong with my body: my weight, hair, stomach, nose, height, thighs — an endless list of body parts that can, and should be, modified. Especially cellulite.

When I became a teenager I was thrown into the world of social media and celebrities with biologically impossible measurements, telling me that they achieved it through slimming teas, waist trainers, or best of all, through exercise. While I was beginning to learn about angles, posing, and lighting, and the effect that it had on how your body appeared on a camera, I was never taught why my body did not look as smooth or silky as the ones of all of these women. Instead, I was fed the narrative that my cellulite, and every other girl’s, was due to not being ‘fit’ or being ‘overweight.’ I was constantly made to feel like it was my fault, that I wasn't healthy enough or didn't care for how my body looked. Women and girls are made to feel guilty for having a part of their body look the way it does. I’m here to tell you that they were wrong, that cellulite is not your enemy, by explaining the beautiful science of your cellulite.

90 percent of women and 10 percent of men are affected by cellulite. A woman has a significantly higher chance of having cellulite than of having brown eyes (which is a bit more than 50 percent of the population).

Cellulite is not just fat accumulation, but rather the structure of the fat that causes it to have that look and texture. There are many reasons for this. Firstly, female bodies generally have higher levels of estrogen than male bodies, which fat cells respond to differently. Secondly, connective tissue in female bodies isn’t as interwoven as they are in male bodies, which then allows more fat to go through. The location of your cellulite is simply due to genetics, which is why some women have it on their stomachs and arms while others on their thighs and glutes. Losing weight, having a good diet, sleeping enough, and not drinking could slightly help, but overall, it makes little to no difference in the appearance of cellulite. There are no treatments, such as creams or lotions, that could work against cellulite, and most surgeries, such as liposuction, don’t work either.

So why are we still trying to get rid of cellulite?

If so many women across the world have something that is created biologically, then it cannot be harmful. The patriarchal world that we live in has created such an image of women that we have been convinced that our bodies aren’t good enough and need to be artificially shaped to fit into the beauty standards. However, the disclaimer that nobody gives us is that, no matter how hard we try, we are never going to live up to society’s expectations. These standards were created to be unattainable and to propagate the capitalist notion that we need more products and more procedures to feel an ounce of confidence. The only way to combat this idea is to feel confident in our natural, unfiltered, unposed bodies, and to take pride in all of the imperfect and un-Instagrammable parts of us.