On the Term "Love Handles"
Below is a screenshot of the images that come up when you search Google for "love handles." Many of the photos show the area on the sides of the waist that bulges downward, like the top of a muffin.
If you look it up on Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_handles), it says: "Love handles" is an informal term for the sides of deposits of excess fat at the side of one's waistline. In other words, it is 'an informal term for excess fat accumulated on the sides of a person's waistline.'
And if you search an online slang dictionary site ( http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/love-handle), it says: 'subcutaneous fat deposits on the external oblique muscles of the abdomen - i.e. fat on one's sides.' That is, subcutaneous fat accumulated over the external oblique muscles of the abdomen, meaning the fat on a person's sides.
The image below, from http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Love-Handles, is a screenshot of a relatively well-drawn illustration found through a Google search.
Dr. Klein, the founder of tumescent liposuction, distinguishes the flanks by sex in his book "Tumescent Technique." In the section describing male flanks, he notes that the term "flanks" is commonly used among people and is a more appropriate expression than the slang term "love handles."
[Hanke CW, Safety of liposuction. In:Narins RS, eds. Safe liposuction and Fat transfer. New York: Marcel Dekker, 2003:291]
He also stated that the belt line is what distinguishes male and female body shapes: in men, the flanks and the area above the pelvis lie below the belt line, while in women, the hips and the area above the pelvis lie above it.
Klein also uses the term "hips" to describe the sides of the female torso. In the illustration below, the labels are: PAB, posterior axillary back; F, flanks; W, waist; H, hips; L, lumbar back; and S, sacral back.
Below is a photo of love handles marked for surgery by Klein.
As you can see, "love handles" is not a formal medical term; in common usage, it refers to the part of the flanks that bulges out to the side.
By dictionary definition, "love handles" is a colloquial or slang expression for the layer of fat accumulated on the middle of the torso, particularly over the abdominal external oblique muscle, visible from the side. The term was first used in the late 1960s, and the Historical Dictionary of American Slang defines it as fat protruding from the sides of the waist.
For reference, at our Venus Clinic, we call the side of the torso seen from the side the flanks or love handles, and in particular the back of the torso seen from behind the posterior flanks, or the lower back or paralumbar area.
We call the narrowest part of the torso the waist, and the ratio between the waist and the hips (the protruding area on the side of the torso above the pelvis), known as the WHR, of W:H = 0.7:1 is regarded as a beautiful figure, called the "hourglass figure."
Below is content from http://www.lifetime-weightloss.com describing how the W/H ratio affects health.
Body-area terms in English and Korean do not always correspond to each other, and some English terms, such as "hips," have no equivalent word in Korean. Please keep this in mind!
