With Kim Kardashian’s new platinum ’do all over social media, you can’t ignore her talent for starting trends. Between her iPhone game and her new selfie book, it’s obvious that Kim knows how to market. One trend that she’s backed in the past few months that’s gaining momentum and controversy is the waist trainer craze. Late last year, Kim posted a mirror selfie on Instagram while at the gym in her blue waist trainer. The caption: #hourglass #waisttraining #nophotoshopnecessary #whatawaist.com @premadonna87.
Waist trainers have since taken off, but is this as innocuous of a fad as photoshopping Kim’s face onto pictures of Draco Malfoy? Not only are the weight loss benefits associated with the waist trainer largely false, but the trainers also come with serious health risks. The idea behind the waist trainer is that, if you wear the corset long enough, it will gradually compress your waist into a smaller shape. Weight loss without any of the dieting or exercise. Doctors, however, say this simply won’t work. Even worse, wearing the waist trainer could make it difficult to breath and digest food, decrease your core strength, or even lead to rib damage or heartburn. If tight enough, the trainer could cause reflux by pushing your stomach beyond your diaphram. The extra sweat produced by wearing one while exercising, which proponents of the trainer claim will help you lose inches around your waist, could actually lead to back acne.
The false claims don’t stop there. One waist trainer is marketed to recently pregnant mothers to help them get back in shape. The “Tauts Post Pregnancy Belly Wrap” alleges to “reduce the size of the swollen uterus, reduce water retention in the belly, and help you lose inches fast, all while supporting that unwanted baggy baby skin” (Modern Mom Boutique). Health professionals assert that a corset won’t induce your uterus to stop swelling or your body to retain less water. Another product, the “Baboosh Body Unisex Sports Wrap,” will cause you to sweat more while working out, which should help you lose weight (Baboosh).
Who can fault women for wanting to look slimmer after a pregnancy or to feel more confident on a night out? The corset—which, honestly, is all the waist trainer is, albeit a modernized version—has been popular for centuries. While details like where the waist is defined or how a corset should lift the breasts has changed over the centuries, the desire to mold the female body into a more ‘appealing’ shape has remained a common goal. Even though we might like to think that, in the 21st century, we’ve relegated the corset to the bedroom, Kim Kardashian and other celebrity corset advocates prove that we are still as susceptible to manipulated images of the female body as in the past.
I want to draw attention to one of Kim’s Instagram hashtags from the beginning of this article: #nophotoshopnecessary. Whether she realizes it or not, Kim is admitting that the figure she’s created with her waist trainer isn’t natural. In her photo, she evidently finds it necessary to tell people that no photographer or editor manipulated her waist to such a small size; she did it herself. By reinforcing the unrealistic body proportions that we used to see only in re-touched modeling photos or Disney princesses, Kim blurs the line further between what’s real and what’s not. One might be able to discount Kim’s waist by saying no part of her body is real: her hips, her breasts, her lips. Yet, as the corset trend catches on, the waist size achievable with the waist trainer might normalize a new, impossible ideal measurement. If commercials and movies featuring women with tiny waists don’t confuse young girls enough, now they might see their teachers or parents’ friends with unnaturally small midsections.
The repercussions of the waist trainer encompass health problems and body image issues. When Khloe Kardashian posted an Instragram picture of her waist trainer, she hashtagged #GetItRight. Is the female waist something we have to fix? Is a woman’s natural waist measurement not ‘right’? A waist trainer might make your waist ‘right’ for a night, but nothing can replace realistic body images or a healthy diet and exercise for a truly ‘right’ body. As Kim’s star continues to rise, we need to remember that a waist trainer can be a temporary, enhancing part of one’s outfit, but it should never become a crutch that supports unhealthy ideals.
* If you’d like to know more about the medical claims mentioned in this article, check these out: “The Dangers of ‘Waist Training’” (Women’s Health) and “What You Should Know About Waist Training” (Health).