Women risk permanent injury trying to shrink their waists

AN insane trend is sweeping the world where women risk permanent injury by wearing steel-boned corsets to shrink their waists to Barbie doll proportions.

Why would anyone do this?

A DISTURBING body modification trend called “tightlacing” is sweeping the world, threatening to do real damage to young women’s bodies.

The weight loss method goes a step further even than controversial latex “waist-trainers” popularised by Kim Kardashian, shrinking waists to as little as the size of a jar of mayonnaise.

Tightlacers squeeze themselves into steel-boned corsets that can take 10 inches off their natural size, for hours at a time, day after day. They often exercise while wearing the archaic shapewear, producing a semi-permanent change to the waistline.

Critics say the corsets aggressively compress the body, causing damage to the wearers’ organs.

Danica Kuehnemann, owner of Dauntless Corsets in Toowoomba, started waist-training with steel-boned corsets because she had “body issues” after giving birth. “Latex ones don’t do anything except make you sweat,” she told news.com.au. “All you do is create a thermal response when exercising and sweat out your water weight.”

The 27-year-old says she lost five inches from her waist between February and September last year from corset-wearing, exercise and a healthy diet. But she warns not to wear them during exercise. “I was just doing weight-training, not cardio, and I almost blacked out. I had to rip off the corset, I felt sick.”

Danica says she only waist-trains, which is variously defined as wearing a corset that takes four inches or 20 per cent off your waist, or simply creates a challengingly tight sensation. “With waist-training you take it slowly, tightlacing is more extreme,” she said. “It can cause problems for the body because it’s so sudden.”

The Queensland mum says commitment and time will yield results. For many women, she adds, the trend isn’t just about a small waist, but about feeling “powerful”, as if you were wearing armour. “I wish people would take the time to research how good it makes people feel,” she said. “One lady lost 12kg just waist-training. It’s a confidence thing as well.”

There are limits, she says. “You can’t really move your ribs and hips much. Only the floating ribs can move.”

Pixee Fox, poster-girl for the tightlacing movement, had six ribs removed to achieve a waist of just 14 inches.

Danica markets her custom-made, high-end corsets as “extreme shapewear” that offer better control than elasticated, smoothing underwear. “Spanx don’t give you any curves,” she said. “If you had a C-section, they don’t tuck your belly in very well.”

She gets regular enquiries from under-18-year-olds, but advises them to wait until they have finished growing. Yet Instagram is packed with younger-looking women showing off their corset-squeezed waists with the hashtags #tightlacing and #waspwaist.

High-profile tightlacer Lucy Corsetry, who sucked in her waist by six or seven inches over three years, says the community is typically supportive.

“My personal limit was closing a size 20 inch corset,” she told news.com.au. “I found it a challenging goal that took three years to achieve, and once I reached it, I was over it. Of course there were the few trolls online who egged me to train further and called me all sorts of names when I didn’t — but they aren’t representative of the community.

“I think of it as a form of sport or slow, long-term body modification that can be varied, changed or reversed as one desires.

“It tends to be easier for those who have a higher body fat percentage, and according to some, it can be easier for women who have already given birth. It can be a little more challenging for athletes with more muscle tone than average.

“When a tightlacer hasn’t put proper research into their practice, when they aren’t open with their doctor, when they ignore the advice of more experienced lacers and ignore their body’s signals, and they wind up hurting themselves, I know that it could have been prevented and it will end up reflecting badly on the tens of thousands of others who do wear corsets responsibly.”

The official record-holder for the world’s smallest waist is Cathie Jung, whose waist measures 15 inches in a corset, which she wears for 24 hours a day. Her website boasts it is “the size of a regular jar of mayonnaise”.

Ann Grogan, author of Corset Magic: A Fun Guide to Trim Your Waist & Figure, told Kernel she tightlaces for the “physical challenge”, seeing how small she can make her waist and how long she can wear it for.

Dr Brian Morton, from the Austrlian Medical Association, said he has seen no evidence that tightlacing or waist training actually work. “The only way it can really do it is you become so uncomfortable it stops you eating,” he told news.com.au. “I’d imagine it could constipate people.

“It’s compressing the bowel and stomach ... it could be constricting the urethra.

“It you don’t use musecles they atrophy. A better way to change your figure is through diet and abdominal wall exercises. Some of these people say they are wearing corsets for 22 hours a day. I can’t believe that’s safe or sensible.”

While some may be responsible with their corset-wearing, others are certainly taking htis trend too far.