Subscribe
Hellobeautiful Featured Video
CLOSE
Beyonce Drunk In Love

Source: Kevin Mazur / Getty

Ok, that’s the just of it, but seriously, stop wasting your money.

This trend that all the Instragram models and reality TV chicks want you to believe actually works is not as effective as people think. Doctors are weighing in.

Via CNN:

“Corset training in and of itself does not remove fat cells,” said Dr. Andrew Miller, a plastic surgeon of Associates in Plastic Surgery in New York and New Jersey to CNN.

However, even though donning the medieval-style clothing is not going to change your body shape, Miller said it could indirectly help you slim down. Being cinched into a corset could prevent your stomach from expanding when you eat so you feel full faster and limit your portion size. After a couple of weeks on a corset diet, you could actually lose weight.

Yet the same effect could be achieved through other means, such as exercising self-restraint at mealtime, Miller said.

Dr. Caroline Apovian, professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and a spokesperson for the Obesity Society (a professional society of obesity researchers) agreed there is “no reason” to think the silhouette you have in a corset would last after you took the corset off.

“If people like the way it looks, that is fine temporarily,” although it would be better to just wear Spanx, Apovian said.

In terms of achieving weight loss, there have not been any studies showing corsets help. One study tried to assess whether wearing a corset for 12 to 16 hours a day over several months could help people maintain the weight loss they achieved through a low-calorie diet. But participants in the study reported, not surprisingly, that the corsets were uncomfortable, and too many of them stopped wearing them for the researchers to detect any possible effects.

The experts also added that waist training could put you at greater risk of heartburn since extreme compression of the abdomen can result in reflux.

Admittedly, I tried waist training for like, three hours (I got one in a gift bag, and got curious). I’m actually surprised I lasted that long because, that thing was not comfortable at all. I can’t even begin to imagine how some women are actually able to work out out those things, unless they’re not for real, for real working out, but like, Instagram working out–you know, doing 10 minutes walking a moderate pace on a treadmill, and then taking a selfie in the gym bathroom following with the hashtags, #gymflow and #beastmode.

Furthermore, Miller recommends taking your corset off if you feel too uncomfortable (common sense), especially if you can’t breathe, because prolonged shallow breathing can put you at risk for pneumonia and other lung infections. ). They shouldn’t feel unbearable.

Here are some more fun facts about waist training (based on common sense):

1. The Instagram models, and celebrities you see endorsing waist trainers are probably already genetically predisposed to having tiny waists.

2. They might also be surgically predisposed to having tiny waists.

3. They may be getting swift results because they’re starving themselves or on extreme diets and workout plans.

4. They’re getting paid to lie to you. (Did you really believe that Kim posted that photo on Instagram with that caption just because? If so, side eye to you.)

So, again, stop wasting your money. Clean up your diet and get more active if you want a smaller waist.

For 2024’s iteration of MadameNoire and HelloBeautiful’s annual series Women to Know, we knew we wanted to celebrate the people who help make the joys of film and television possible. To create art is to create magic. This year, we spotlight Hollywood Executive’s changing the face of cinema.