NZ experts concerned about effect of waist trainer trend on young women

One year since hitting the New Zealand market, products known as "waist trainers" are still hugely popular with young Kiwi women.

Auckland-based manufacturer Waist Trainer New Zealand Australia became the first New Zealand stockist in April 2015, and has sold between 200 and 1000 waist trainers weekly, mostly in New Zealand and Australia.

Heralded on fashion blogs for helping celebrities lose weight, waist trainers first became popular in late 2014 after the Kardashians promoted the products on social media.

Online retailers say the corset-like products can help prevent overeating, reduce bloating and improve posture.

Formal studies have yet to be conducted to determine the full effect waist trainers can have on women's health, but researchers from two Auckland universities told Te Waha Nui there were possible health risks to users.

AUT senior psychology lecturer Dr Rita Csako, who researches eating disorders, said teenage girls were particularly likely to develop a distorted body image when wearing waist trainers.

"If you put on a device that is kind of pushing you smaller, that can trigger a lot of thoughts around being big.

"Imagine if you were forced to wear a pair of trousers that is one size smaller than your normal size. It's really tight and it's uncomfortable. If you feel like that for a long time, it can lead to that kind of body image issue where you think that you are too big."

Dr Kirby-Jane Hallum, a Victorian history and gender studies researcher at the University of Auckland, said the resurgence of the extreme hour-glass body shape popular in the Victorian era was likely related to the Kardashians’ endorsement of waist trainers.

The Kardashians’ surgical enhancements made the curvy silhouette appear even more extreme, said Dr Hallum. The slimness of their waists compared with the over-extenuation of breast implants created a look which could not be obtained by using waist trainers alone.

“I do worry that an impressionable generation of New Zealand women see that as an ideal.

“[But] I guess at the end of the day, we have a choice whether to put a corset on or not. A Victorian woman didn’t. It was part of the costumery of being a woman in that period.”

Waist Trainer New Zealand Australia marketing manager Sherilyn Upton said the brand told its customers using waist trainers would not change their size or body shape.

"They’re not like corsets . . . you're not going to wear it and look like the girls on Instagram. It's not for that."

Ms Upton said other brands of waist trainers promoted products on social media using photographs of thin young women, but Waist Trainer New Zealand Australia tried to separate itself from this image.

In 2015 Kiwi beauty and fashion Youtuber Shannon Harris (Shaaanxo) became a brand ambassador for Waist Trainer New Zealand Australia's products.

Ms Upton said Ms Harris was chosen "to show girls how waist trainers actually work on a real person", having struggled with her own body image issues in the past.

Shaaanxo shows off her waist trainer on Instagram. Supplied: Waist Trainer New Zealand Australia

In 2015, waist trainers received negative publicity internationally. Many doctors and personal trainers said, like corsets, waist trainers had the potential to crush the wearers' organs and constrict their lungs, making breathing difficult.

Dr Hallum said she had not heard of any academic studies on the health effects of waist trainers. “It’s too early to know the health effects of them.”

However, she said 19th-century X-rays examined by historians indicated corsets worn during the period were dangerous to women’s health.

“There were a lot of implications for breathing, because the lower lungs particularly were impacted.

Dr Hallum said the physical impacts corsets had on women mirrored the societal restrictions placed on women in the 1800s: “How were women supposed to make their way through society when they couldn’t breathe properly?”

Ms Upton said Waist Trainer New Zealand Australia products had been independently tested and, unlike corsets, should not be restrictive, but instead "feel almost like a sock fit".

"They shouldn't be too tight. You should be able to move around. You should still be able to breathe."