Hip Moves... We Should All Make!

As more younger women need hip surgery, experts advise how to stay active to head off any trouble

- Kim Jones

We think of hip surgery as something that happens after 70, often following a fall, but more women in their fifties and even forties are having replacements or the less-invasive hip resurfacing operation that ballerina and BBC’s Strictly judge Darcey Bussell, 48, underwent two years ago.

Overdoing high-impact exercise and being overweight are some causes; but osteoarthritis – when cartilage lining the joints is damaged, so bones rub together – is still the most common problem. Whatever the reason, the development of smaller, longer-lasting prosthetic joints means surgeons are offering them to younger patients. So what to do to keep this joint healthy and pain-free?

Move your hips

To keep the articular cartilage that protects your hip bones healthy and well fed with synovial fluid, you need to move regularly, says orthopaedic surgeon Dr Robert Klapper, coauthor of Heal Your Hips (Wiley).