The Dangers of 'Waist Training'

This newly trendy practice involves wearing a corset-like device for hours at a time to compress your core, which will supposedly decrease the size of your waist permanently over time.

You don’t have to be an M.D. to realize that waist “training” to shrink sounds suspiciously iffy. In fact, experts generally agree that there’s no way it can really work—and it might do real bodily harm. “Medically, it doesn’t make sense that cinching your waist tightly will make it permanently smaller,” says Mary Jane Minkin, M.D., clinical professor of ob-gyn at Yale School of Medicine. "Once you take the garment off, your body will return to its usual shape. It’s also uncomfortable, restricts your movements, and if you wear it really tight, it can even make it difficult to breathe and theoretically could cause rib damage.”

Believers say that the tightness of the garment makes you sweat a lot, but it’s really not possible to perspire so much that you shave inches off her midsection in any permanent way. What does work to shed pounds around your belly? You guessed it—eating healthy and being active on a regular basis. It’s not trendy, but it’s the one thing that works, whether you want to drop baby weight or just a few stubborn lbs, says Minkin.


Celebrities Swear by It, but Is Waist Training Actually Healthy?

Now to the big question: Should you try it? Well...probably not.

When you wear this 500-year-old device, you squish your lungs and ribs, which makes it hard to breathe. Some women have actually passed out from wearing one for too long, says Christopher Ochner, Ph.D., weight loss and nutrition expert at Mount Sinai Hospital. And if you keep wearing it for an extended period of time? It ain't pretty: Think crushed organs, compressed lungs, and fractured ribs.

Plus, experts say it doesn't really work. "Spot reducing doesn't exist," says Ochner. "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." Yes, some people can get away with wearing the waist trainer without any real harm done. But for a real, long-term weight-loss plan, you're better off looking elsewhere.