There's nothing wrong with having a thigh gap if that's just the way your thighs are built. But is trying to achieve one when it's not part of your body's genetic makeup really worth the effort?

Thanks to photo sharing sites like Tumblr and Instagram, a lot of young women feel pressured to work out just so that their thighs don't touch. Some have even resorted to following "tips" that involve working out excessively and starving themselves just so they can emulate these photos.

Unsurprisingly, this obsessive, self-negating adulation of thigh gaps has plenty of experts worried. USA Today reports:
"The intrusion and presence of social media in our lives really does make it very difficult," said Nancy Albus, chief executive officer of Castlewood Treatment Center, a suburban St. Louis facility that focuses on eating disorders. "The important distinction about thigh gap is it gives you an actual visual to achieve, this visual comparison of how your body does or doesn't stack up."

Vonda Wright, a Pittsburgh-based orthopedic surgeon and fitness expert, said the spacing between a person's legs is based mostly on genetics. And even extraordinarily thin people may not have a body type that can achieve a gap. You have to be both skinny and wide-hipped, she said.

Besides, Wright said, it isn't a goal worth chasing. Most fit people won't have a thigh gap because their thighs are muscular enough that they touch, she said.

"Skinny does not mean fit or muscular," said Wright, who works with Division I athletes. "I cannot think of one athlete I deal with" who has a thigh gap.
[USA Today]