Many women want to obtain the coveted hour-glass figure. Some of the most common ways women whittle down their waist is through exercise, diet and plastic surgery.
But now that Kardashians, as well as other celebrities, have endorsed corsets, they’ve become the latest fashion trend. Let them keep theirs though. You don’t need one.
What Corsets Do to Your Body
Corsets are very effective in slimming your waist down. But that’s not all they do. It’s easy to be blinded by the Disney princess figure, but you can damage your body by wearing a tight corset too frequently.
Let’s look at some of the negative effects they have on your beautiful body.
Difficulty Breathing
When the corset (or cage) closes in around the lungs, it’s very hard for women to breath fully, as this girl found out. According to Christopher Ochner, Ph.D., a weight loss and nutrition expert from Mount Sinai Hospital, some women even pass out because they’re not getting enough air.
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Fractured Ribs
Although wearing a corset can leave you looking like a Barbie doll, it’s an insidious business finally getting to be that shape. When a corset coils around your abdomen, like a snake around its prey, you can actually fracture or bruise your ribs.
In the end, you need to ask yourself if an hour-glass figure is really worth breaking bones over.
It’s Hard to Move Normally
Since it’s harder to take deep and full breaths with a corset on, it’s harder to move around, too. So, even if it improves your posture by standing taller, you’re going to walk a lot slower. Sitting is also uncomfortable in a corset.
In short, you’re going to be living in a lot of pain.
Nicole Florence, MD, and Co-Director of Memorial Weight Loss and Wellness Center at Memorial Medical Center says that “Corset training can restrict any type of movement in your midsection. It can restrict your lungs, which can cause lung infections and other lung problems, as well as restrict your bowels, which can cause constipation. It can also cause bruising and rib pain.”
As you can see, it’s not just hard to move your extremities. Your inner organs suffer, too.
On top of this, there’s no medical research to back the use of this harmful trend.
Difficulty Eating Adequate Amounts of Food
There’s no more room for a full breakfast, lunch or dinner when your stomach is so squashed. Unintentionally, the corset forces you to adapt some pretty restrictive dieting. This just adds discomfort to discomfort because now you’re both hungry and uncomfortable.
Your Body Goes Back to Normal Anyways
It’s easy for you to look slimmer when you’re squeezing your waist into a tight and restrictive corset. But you’re not losing fat. You’re just pushing it around. As Dr. Ocher explains, “You can't reduce the collection of fat in any one particular area of your body. If you push your stomach in, all the fat will go right back to where it was no matter how long [you wear the corset] for.”
What’s more, if it’s harder to move, you’re probably not going to burn off much fat. Sure, you might end up with a thinner waist because you can’t eat a lot, but like most trends, the results aren’t long-lasting.
You Can Mess Up Your Internal Organs
A corset might give you an hour-glass figure, but it also enforces cruel restrictions to the rest of your abdomen. When you wear a corset, you’re not just obtaining an hour-glass figure. You force your organs to accommodate the unnatural shape by moving around inside your body.
This short-term solution can cause some significant side effects, says spinal surgeon, Dr. Paul Feffords.
Damage to Your Digestive System and Colon
It may seem like a very unglamorous subject to discuss, but corsets place a lot of pressure and harm on your digestive system, all the way from your stomach down to your colon.
With so much pinching and squeezing going on in the colon, blood flow is restricted and this can be very dangerous. Plus, your small intestines and colon can move around within your body, and that’s never good.
Emotional and Psychological Side Effects
This pretty form of torture hails all the way from the 16th century, and it’s unfortunate that women today still feel the need to harm themselves in order to get this “acceptable” body shape. The corset doesn’t just inflict physical harm.
It also sets women up for emotional and psychological issues, too. Here are just a few concepts that women subconsciously embrace by wearing a corset long-term.
Your Body Isn’t Good as It Is?
Everyone knows that when you see a celebrity in a magazine or ad, you’re not just looking at that particular woman. You’re looking at hours and hours of editing, airbrushing, lighting, makeup, and design. Plus, many celebrities don’t live a normal lifestyle. They often have restrictive diets and intense workout regiments.
Unfortunately, all these models make women second guess and dislike their body’s natural shape. It makes women compare and compete with these unrealistic standards.
Dieting and exercising are already hard enough for some women, but it’s especially difficult when you want to change your natural shape so drastically.
That’s one of the reasons why the corset is so appealing. It does the work for you, but it does a lot of harm, too.
It’s Okay to Hurt Your Body?
There’s that old saying, “No pain, no gain.” But corsets take this concept a little too far. Leslie Heinberg, M.D. and Director of Behavioral Sciences for the Bariatric and Metabolic Institute at Cleveland Clinic, gives women this important reminder. “There’s misinformation that body shape and body weight can be easily changeable to society’s standards, but we come in all different shapes and sizes and some of us aren’t meant to have a tiny waist.”
Your body is meant to be a certain shape, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is to put it through damaging pain and discomfort so you can look – even for a short time – like Sleeping Beauty.
Corsets are a slimming trend but do your body (and mind!) a favor by keeping this waist-cinching contraption off your body.
