How to Hide a Muffin Top

Regardless of your size, shape or even age, there’s one body issue you are probably dealing with: the muffin top.

This roll of fat – large or small, depending on your overall size – plops over the top of your waistband to create the look of a muffin top. It can just spill over the front of pants, or it can pop up over the sides and back of pants, too.

Although women have had expanding waistlines for decades, it’s been more noticeable in the past 10 years or so because waistlines have become lower and looks like skinny jeans accent the muffin top.

How to Hide a Muffin Top

The good thing about muffin top is that it is fairly easy to disguise using fashion tricks. Here’s how:

• Don’t wear tops that are tight in the middle. While tight pants get blamed for muffin top (and they don’t help, so make sure your waistband isn’t too tight), it’s actually tight tops that highlight the problem of muffin top. Knits are notorious for grabbing on to every extra ounce and accentuating bulges. So opt for blousy or belted tops that aren’t too fitted.
• If you do wear a fitted top, wear a camisole shaper. I am addicted to cami shapers now. They are lightweight and don’t feel like traditional shapewear. A camisole smooths you out and lets you wear fitted knits (without doing crunches – ha!) It also does double duty and eliminates back fat.
• Wear layers. Disguise muffin top by wearing a tailored jacket or vest over your top. The added structure worn as a top layer will help disguise extra lumps and bumps. Same goes for knits: a twinset is much more forgiving of muffin top because it has double the layers.
• Wear darker colors on top. Black, navy, chocolate, charcoal: all of these will help make the top half of your body look smaller.