Last updated on August 22, 2020
Question:
What causes stretch marks in men? I found a few and I’m not even out of high school!
Answer:
The skin is amazingly flexible, but even it has limits as to how far it can stretch. When the skin is stretched near its limits, small cracks form. These look red at first because the blood vessels underneath are exposed. The tears are actually in the middle layer of the skin and not on the surface. As they heal, scar tissue is formed leaving a track of lighter colored skin across an area of your body that is glossier than the rest of your skin. The medical term for stretch marks is striae.
Some men are predisposed to stretch marks because they don’t have as much collagen in their skin, which gives it its flexibility. Some men also scar easily making them predisposed to forming stretch marks.
You can get stretch marks if you put on weight rapidly. You can actually store fat cells faster than your skin can cover them. Diseases that cause you to gain weight rapidly can also cause stretch marks.
If you bulk up rapidly from weight training, building more muscles quicker than your skin can grow to cover them, you can get small tears. Thus body builders are prone to stretch marks and even weight-lifting can lead to some stretch marks.
Some boys get them simply from their rapid growth during their adolescence years because each part of the body doesn’t necessarily grow at the same rate.
It is also possible to get them from sports, wrestling, being tackled, and other such actions can stretch your skin and cause minor tears which end up forming stretch marks.
The is no good treatment for stretch marks. You’ll find people sell all kinds of creams, but I don’t know any that actually works. Stretch marks do fade over time — usually on the order of several years — even without treatment. Dermatologists can use a laser to fade stretch marks, but the treatment will not completely remove them.