If you are approaching a period of rapid growth – puberty or pregnancy for instance – you could find yourself suffering from stretch marks soon or later. Stretch marks occur when the skin is subjected to strain beyond its elasticity limits. In materials science, when a material is subjected to pressure beyond its elasticity limits, in breaks apart. In the human body, when the skin (which is seen as a body organ) is subjected to too much pressure, stretch marks tend to form on it. The stretch marks tend to be quite disfiguring and a person who claims to like them would most likely be considered 'eccentric.' In most people's opinion, stretch marks don't quite look good.

Thankfully, there are a number of things you can do, to protect yourself from stretch marks.

1) The first thing you can do to protect yourself from stretch marks is by increasing your fluid intake. In other words, this is about keeping yourself (and hence your skin) well hydrated. Hydrated skin has a higher elasticity limit than dehydrated skin, and is thus less prone to stretch marks. As a minimum, ensure you maintain the traditionally recommended water intake level of eight glasses of water a day, especially during your pregnancy (or other periods when rapid growth is to be expected), which are when you are most prone to the formation of stretch marks. Taking other fluids like juices and milk can also go a long way towards substituting intake of plain water, which you may find unsavory. Keep yourself well hydrated, and you are one step out of stretch marks' way.

2) The second thing you can do to protect yourself from stretch marks is exercising. It has now been established, beyond reasonable room for doubt, that women who exercise during their pregnancies tend to be less prone to stretch marks than women who become 'couch potatoes' over the duration of their pregnancies. Even when the women who exercise happen to fall into stretch marks' way, they tend to be less severe than in women who absolutely don't exercise. Exercising seems to increase the skin's elasticity limits considerably. Of course, before starting on any type of exercise during pregnancy, you do need to seek your doctor's blessings. Exercising, as a way of protecting oneself against stretch marks is not limited periods of pregnancy only. If you are a teen during what appears to be your prime growth stages, and you maintain an active lifestyle, you would be going a long way towards keeping yourself from stretch marks' way.

3) The third thing you can do to protect yourself from stretch marks is making use of the various available 'stretch marks creams and lotions.' The best of these can help even with cases of stretch marks that are already manifesting. The mechanism through which these stretch mark treatments work is by hydrating the skin – which as we noted earlier, goes a long towards increasing the skin's vulnerability to stretch marks. Only that the stretch mark creams and lotions give you a way of 'focusing' your hydration efforts to specific spots on the skin more prone to the stretch marks.