It was warm today and I wore shorts and a friend was complementing me on my weight loss and they said my "cankles" are almost gone and I said WHAT?

She told me that cankles is a slang name for condition not neccesarily attrubuted to obesity but usually so that caused the leg to look like your calf is directly connected to your ankle. Hence the word "cankle"

I told her well thank you ... I think! LOL!

When I got home I looked it up on the internet and sure enough there is a word for cankle! Cracked me up what some people will come up with!

Almost as funny a "muffin top" that I learned a few months ago! I smile everytime I see a gal from behind with a little meat puffing out up at the top now!

How about it anybody have cankles? LOL!

It's nice to know that mine are going away. I didn't even know I had them!

It's bad manners to point out a that a person has cankles! I'd have smacked her (not really, just in my imagination...)

I've known thin people who did not have much circumference difference between the wide part of their calf and their ankle. So it's not a "condition" reserved for the obese...

Personally, I'm cankle free - my ankles and wrists are the smallest things on me (nice to have at least one small area!).

Yes, I know what cankles are. I really don't have them, but the back of my foot is not nearly as defined as I would like them to be. If there was only one thing I could change about my body, it would be my legs, and have the back of my ankle looking awesome. I have been overweight my whole life, and I have wanted defined ankles since middle school. LOL. Well, I have taken up running, and I am GOING to finally get them!

I dunno, I have tiny little ankles and I'd much rather have a toned stomach (my stomach has never, ever been flat).

I agree with CC, that's quite rude to point out to somebody! It's the equivalent of saying "hey, your saddlebags are almost gone." Friend or not, I would've smacked her!

My cankles are getting better all the time.

Nah this is a good friend that I have known for most of my life we rag on each other all the time. I have said much, much worse! Believe me! LOL!

Coming from her it was a complement!

I would also take it as a compliment!! I have cankles (which I am working on!) and if somebody say that to me one day, it will make me very happy.

Good for you Flatiron!!

even at close to 400 lbs I've never had cankles BUT my best friend who is like 140 lbs has them. Go figure!

It doesn't matter how thin I get, I always have cankles. But I always considered them sturdy New Englander ankles. They are genetic - I get them from my father. I am so enamored by my DSs' slim little ankles that they got from *their* father.

Yep - genetics play a big part in the dreaded cankle. The women in my family have them, since my great-grandma. We try to wear them as a badge of honor for our genetic heritage!

I was introduced to the concept of "cankles" during media coverage of Hilary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign. There was actually an article about whether she had them or not. It taught me a new word.

Personally, I think I have the opposite of cankles. And that would be what I've always heard called piano legs. It means that my legs do indeed taper into a slim ankle. But the calves above them are thick. My legs look like a pyramid.

(When they say "piano legs," they aren't talking about an upright. Here's a picture of a Steinway grand with "piano legs."
http://www.countrypiano.com/showroom...y-C-107880.htm )

I have to work awfully hard at keeping them fairly proportionate. It's definitely genetic. When I was a slender adolescent, I still had this problem. I remember one horrific Saturday morning, when I'd had too much salty stuff for dinner the night before, when at first I could not stuff my swollen legs into my riding boots. Problem was, there was a show that day. I needed to wear the tall shiny black boots. We had to ice my legs down. Even then, for half the day, it felt like my circulation was cut off.

Isn't it interesting how all these weird body defects are always pointed out in women and never in men?

Very genetic. I never had cankles or what people refer to as the waddle. (I actually had trouble figuring that one out because I didn't know what people meant when they referred to it). I was in the upper 300s but those weren't my issues.

Well, we could go back to the 18th century, when men wore breeches & stockings, and worried a lot about the shape of their legs.

I have heard men worrying about having "chicken legs" & planning to work on that in the gym.

All such talk reminds me of my horsey youth. (Yes, forgive me. Another anecdote is on its way.) I used to pore over books on horses. Often they included a chapter on "conformation," which included drawings & photographs of ideally formed horses & also of animals that were less fortunate. Horse lingo is wonderfully archaic, since they were the mode of transport for so many centuries. There would be pictures of horses that were spavined or bow-legged or knock-kneed or cow-hocked, horses with withers that were too high or too low, horses with sloping cannons, with roman noses, etc. There is this incredible lexicon to describe physical flaws of horses. Doubtless there's one for dogs, too, since this is another animal whose breeding we've controlled for centuries in order to attain certain desirable characteristics. So it's fascinating to me to hear this transferred to human beings. And also disquieting. I start thinking of Aryan purity & Dr. Mengele & all the other unfortunate consequences of talking about human appearance as if we were animals being bred for certain characteristics.

All the cankles talk about Hillary annoyed me. So you can graduate from Yale law, work out a major health care initiative, act as a senator, run for president, and yeah, still, someone's gonna point out that your physical conformation is deficient & you have cankles.