Weight-loss is the biggest struggle many of us women face when we decide to embark on the journey of health and fitness! Having to lower our calorie intake, exercising, reading all nutrition labels making sure we’re not having too much salt, or too much sugar, and again, exercising! So naturally of course, when we hear about a product or method that is bound to make the journey easier or has a 100% guarantee of amazing results, we are all hoping abroad the train and taking our money out ready to spend.
Well, this new product that’s been circulating around is of course the ‘Waist-Trainer’. Waist-trainers are very similar to corsets worn by many women during the 1500 and are meant to ‘mold’ your waist into a slimmer figure. The idea is for you to wear it for 8 hours a day (recommended) and eventually, your body will start to mold itself into the shape of the waist-trainer. The waist-trainer has become a popular product amongst celebrities as many have also jumped onto the trend and some are even endorsing it; from the likes of Kim Kardashian and co, to Jessica Alba who compliments the waist-trainer for her incredible quick loss of baby weight. Celebrity endorsements of a product which I believe isn’t safe for all to use, encourages many women to want to try them or even give them an ideology or expectation to look like those they are following on social media platforms.
As we are an ever growing digital society, we mainly rely on web and mobile communications to inspire, direct, and help us when dealing with a problem whether it be health, fashion, food, or beauty related. More and more young people are gaining access to the digital media world and are mirroring what they see in order to keep up with the fads and trends without questioning whether what they’re doing is safe or age appropriate. Waist-trainers have been around for an extremely long period of time but we never really knew much about them or knew they existed or really had an interest in using them till they were brought into the media circulation via the likes of The Kardashians and friends and since then, it has just kind of escalated into its own workout equipment. The Kardashian-Jenner family have a total and growing following of 358 million followers on Instagram, an extremely popular social media platform. The ‘power’ social media family have gained the ability to set trends and fads as well as beauty standards all with a singular post on Instagram endorsing a product or simply wearing a certain item which either compliments their figures or highlights their hair and cosmetics. With such a large following and majority being young impressionable teenagers, anything they endorse, many followers are quick to buy the product in order to have similar results to them, especially if the product is meant to help you with your weight loss, it attracts an even bigger audience. This then creates a repetitive effect were women see what they do and other established celebrities and think that’s what they have to do, or act, or look like in order to be ‘beautiful’.
I’ve looked into waist training and researched what it actually does to your body and I think these are a few things you might want to keep in mind if you’re thinking about jumping onto the band wagon.
- Waist training does in fact make you look slim at the waist as soon as putting the corset on but there’s an undeniable psychological effect that comes with it which might actually benefit you. Dr. Galyna Selezneva, an aesthetic medical doctor said, “Waist training can serve as a constant reminder of your present shape, aiding a sense of restriction which can motivate individuals to diet”.
- Waist training might lead to temporary weight loss as those that workout while wearing a corset can lead to an increase within body temperature, causing you to sweat more leading to a temporarily weight loss but within the long run, you don’t actually lose any fat. While wearing it, you appear slimmer but once you take it off, your body reverts back to its normal shape. Wearing a corset actually has no effect on the amount of body fat that you have. For you to have long-term results you would have to wear the corset at all times, which is not medically recommended
- Waist-training could potentially cause your organs to shift resulting in dangerous consequences. “A shift in pressure on your internal organs means you’ll be less tolerant of certain foods, including gas-producing and fatty foods, some individuals might find that normal portion sizes are too much”, “With waist training, the upper organs move upwards, and lower organs shift downwards… this can then put a similar pressure on the abdomen-which has been known to cause constipation”, Dr. Galyna, 2015.
- Other effects of waist training are that it can cause dehydration, affect your back muscles as you aren’t relying on your back and abdominal muscles for posture while waist training, and it can also have an effect on your breathing due to tightness and repeated use of the waist trainer.
Hopefully this post will encourage women to look at more safe forms of exercising and not be inspired to conform to a standard set by people who choose what parts of their lives we see and exploit us all in the same of looking ‘beautiful’ for the digital world!
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