Waist Training

Before spilling all the names of the celebrities who proudly announced their preference and advocacy for this particular trend called waist training, let us give a quick definition to the term. It is a training method that involves wearing a corset-like device called “faja”. Faja is a specific girdle popular in South Africa. This corset (or any specifically modified waist cincher) is to be worn everyday for a prolonged period of time to compress the person’s core and achieve a very tiny waist that resembles an hourglass.

Waist training is sometimes referred to as tight lacing. The use of corsets can be traced all the way back to the mid 19th century. If you have seen movies or films that are set during the Medieval Era, you will notice that every woman during that time was wearing it. But obviously, the use of corsets has been modified these days. Let’s find out who’s doing this and why women are raving about it.

A writer was asked to do a piece about this trend and why celebrities are getting fetish about it. Many celebrities are notoriously known to be doing waist training. Famous names like Kim Kardashian, Blac Chyna (Kim’s best friend), Khloe Kardashian and Beyonce are just some of the more recognizable names. But before the writer can start working on her assigned task, she was encouraged to go through the whole process first just to get a clear, precise and realistic view of what the whole thing is actually about. 

Being a self-confessed Kim Kardashian fanatic, she did not have any problem obliging to it. Having to deliberately admit obsessing over Kim’s shape, she subscribed to Hourwaist.com for the corset-like device and immediately wore it. The supplier advised her to do a series of core training first before putting it on. She did not listen. Every single excruciatingly painful day gets subdued by the mere thought of getting a teeny tiny waist like Kim’s. She wore it for a period of days and has described it as very uncomfortable and painful.

But despite the pain and discomfort, she confessed that she became addicted to it. Medical experts strongly detest this practice due to the dangerous effects it may cause to our body, like damage to the nerve in the groin called meralgia paresthetica (burning or tingling sensation on the thigh), and damage to the skin and other internal organs. Also, the dangerous restriction of oxygen in the body can significantly affect every organ’s functionality.

A lot of mothers do binding during their post natal stage. Even famous celebrities like Jessica Alba and Gweneth Paltrow used waist training after giving birth. Megan Fox has also confessed that she loved it so much. Although medical experts do not entirely agree to this practice and still highly encourage the conventional dieting and proper exercising, there are still a lot of women who believe that cinching is the best and easiest way to achieving a more desirable, smaller waistline.