What Causes Big Hips?

A woman or man who has a healthy waist-to-hip ratio does not need to lose weight. But if a person's waist-to-hip ratio is higher than .85 for females or 1.0 for males, then the individual should consider losing weight. To find your waist-to-hip measurement, divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement. A higher than healthy waist-to-hip ratio can be caused by a number of factors.

High Calorie Intake

• Calories are a measure of energy that is required for the human body to do work. Food is filled with a certain number of these calories. Carbonated drinks filled with sugar and starchy foods such as potatoes contain more of these calories than leafy green vegetables. Consuming more of these calories in your diet than you need for the tasks that you undertake in a day can cause your body to store these excess calories in the form of fat. People with a high waist-to-hip ratio have larger quantities of fat stored on their bodies.

Sedentary Lifestyle

• People who do more work in a day will use more calories to power the human factory that is their bodies. In the same way, people who do less work will require fewer calories. This is why exercise is an important component to many weight loss and fitness plans. As you exercise, you burn more calories. If you burn more calories daily than you intake into your body, your body will supplement them with the stored calories in your fat. But if you lead a sedentary lifestyle, you will burn fewer calories than you intake. This is why people who live sedentary lifestyles gain weight easier than people who are active.

Age

• According to the Mayo Clinic, as you age you lose muscle. Muscle will use the energy provided in fat cells, even at rest. When you lose muscle, you also slow the rate at which you burn fat. As you age your metabolism, which is the way in which fat is converted to energy, also slows. This can make it more difficult to lose weight once your gain it.