Do waist trainers work? -The New York Times

Corsets are back. In fact, they never left.

Since the earliest times, women have been selling products to narrow their waists and flatten their bellies. In the United States, whalebone accommodation of the 18th and 19th centuries made way for tight belts under the 1950s flare.

Now, the lucrative shapewear industry and celebrity influencers have proposed certain stomach-ache products as more than just strategies to smooth special outfits. Waist lift trainers – compression devices that are worn tightly around the waist, and are typically fastened with zippers, velcro or a phalanx of eye hooks – have been branded as important tools for shedding pounds and sculpting stubborn cores.

The implication is that with regular wear, your waistline will tighten and become slimmer, and maintain a permanent hourglass configuration. But can a waist trainer really do that? Here’s what experts have to say about four of the product’s claims.

The idea of ​​using a waist trainer to irreversibly shape your body into a shape of your taste is similar to that of using a container or mouth guard to prevent teeth from moving. If you regularly squeeze your waist into an hourglass shape, the thought goes that your body will inevitably retain that shape over time.

But, unlike teeth, which can be moved and maintained because they are bones, the fat, organs and flesh around your midsection will not be trained in a new position, says Colleen Tewksbury, the bariatric program manager at Penn Medicine and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Dr. Maria Lombardo, a cosmetic surgeon who focuses on breast and body surgery, said fat cells could not be moved or destroyed.

“When you just put something around your waist to clip it in, fat is deformed in that fat, but the fat does not break down,” she said. “It does not move to another place. It’s just crushing. ”

Many of the marketing demands for waist trainers suggest that sweat in the abdominal region can break down fat cells faster there. But just as fat cannot be redistributed with pressure, it also cannot be sweated out, Dr. Edward Laskowski, a professor and sports medicine specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., Wrote in an email.

In fact, any post-workout weight changes you may notice are likely to lead to fluid loss.

There are some medications that can help with weight loss, but only surgery can remove fat from a specific area. Diet and exercise are often more accessible, and even then everything shrinks slowly at once, no matter what you wear.

There is no such thing as “target reinforcement,” said Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, said. “I know we, as humans, want to feel that we have control, but the reality is that we just do not do it.”

A restricted stomach means less space for food, which helps suppress your appetite and eat smaller portions.

Hypothetically, wearing something tight around your abdomen can make you feel satiated faster, thus limiting your calorie intake, says Dr. Amy E. Rothberg, Professor of Medicine and the director of the University of Michigan’s weight management program. But because waist trainers can be so uncomfortable, you are not likely to wear them long enough to make a difference in how much you eat, she said.

For example, in one part of a small study conducted in Sweden and published in 2010, researchers aimed to investigate whether corset use after weight loss in obese patients could help them maintain the loss.

But the researchers were never able to draw any firm conclusions on that topic because the corsets were so uncomfortable that less than a quarter of the participants ended up wearing them regularly.

“There is no scientific evidence and very limited, if any, data that waist trainers actually contribute to weight loss,” said Dr. Rothberg said.

When you do a core workout, the thinking goes intense pressure in the middle can help build muscle faster.

For some people, experts say – especially those with weakened abdominal muscles, often after major surgery such as a C-section, hysterectomy or bowel surgery – this may be true. A waist trainer can be helpful in supporting them in the early stages of healing and rebuilding their core. One small 2012 study found that after patients with chronic low back pain wore a corset for six months, their pain improved and some core muscles were strengthened.

After these patients built up their strength, dr. Stanford said they would be able to support themselves “with their own musculature.”

But without any serious core muscle trauma, experts have warned that a waist trainer can weaken the very abdominal muscles that people try to build. This is because it can serve as a crutch, forcing people to rely on the waist trainer, rather than their core, to support their torso.

And since muscle burns more calories than fat, a waist trainer can delay weight loss in the long run, Dr. Lombardo said.

Most doctors agree that you will need to wear a waist trainer completely too tight, too long to damage your internal organs. And in the short term, any discomfort you may feel will probably motivate you to loosen the rods.

If you did ignore the discomfort and kept your body trainer on, consuming too few calories would likely be unsustainable, or could even be harmful. Restrictive diets can slow down your metabolism, leading to future weight gain, or can cause disordered eating habits and weakness.

And narrowing itself can cause gastrointestinal problems, such as bloating or constipation. “This compression can also contribute to acid reflux by interfering with normal digestive flow,” Dr. Laskowski wrote.

A waist trainer can also impair the natural movement of your diaphragm, which in turn can affect your breathing. This is especially true if you wear one while exercising. In rare cases, dr. Lombardo said, people can fit out.

“Having good airflow, like what you were designed for, is a good thing,” she said.

Mid-rise shoes are part of the ever-growing world of unproven and often ineffective products sold to women who are frustrated with their weight.

“This is why we have a billion-dollar weight loss industry: We want the easy way out,” said Dr. Lombardo said.

This is not to say that for some it is not worth it to smooth out bumps and bumps under an outfit for an evening out. Confidence matters, and if shapewear makes you feel better, go ahead and put it on. But for the long term, sustainable results, following a healthy diet, including strength training in your workouts and, most importantly, being kind to yourself, are much better bets.

“Nothing beats the basics of clean eating, physical activity and strength training, including core exercise,” said Dr. Laskowski wrote. “The best ‘prop’ you can give your waistline is your core muscles working together, and the best ‘corset’ is your muscle ‘corset’.”