For as long as I can remember, I've been hearing that fajas can help you get a smaller waist. I thought it was a Latina thing, but apparently not because now everyone and their non-Latina abuelas seem to be getting into waist training. Whether you call it waist training or faja wearing to get a smaller waist, it pretty much amounts to the same thing: basically you wear a faja around your waist for hours a day and it is supposed to train your waist into being smaller.
So does this really work or is it a bunch of cuento that can actually hurt you?
Read more ¿Qué más?: The 5 best fajas that will help you tone your post-baby tummy!
Well, the likes of Kim Kardashian and her sister Khloe, who have both taken to social media and posted pictures of themselves in waist trainers, seem to believe that it works. And even our beloved Jessica Alba has admitted that she wore fajas after having babies to get her waist back, but medical experts aren't buying it.
Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, clinical professor of ob-gyn at Yale School of Medicine, says, "Medically, it doesn't make sense that cinching your waist tightly will make it permanently smaller. Once you take the garment off, your body will return to its usual shape. It's also uncomfortable, restricts your movements, and if you wear it really tight, it can even make it difficult to breathe and theoretically could cause rib damage."
Okay, I agree with the good doctor, it doesn't make sense that you could squeeze yourself skinny, BUT people have been doing it for centuries and getting results. Maybe it's not the actual faja that makes you skinny, but I'll tell you what, I wore one all day when I went to the carnival recently and I had a hard time eating because the thing was so dang tight around my belly. I took a couple of bites of food and then felt like I was going to get sick if I ate anymore, so maybe that's how it works, it squeezes you do dang tight, that you stop eating as much while you wear it.
So can fajas or corsets really be a danger to your health. Uh, yeah. Over a year ago I told you about Michele Kobke who has a 16 inch waist that she got with the help of corsets. She started off with a 25 inch waist and by wearing a corset every day and every night she got it down to what seems impossibly small. Is she fine health-wise? She thinks so, but her doctors don't. To begin with, she has to eat 10 mini-meals a day because her midsection can't fit a full meal. What's worse is that the muscles in her midsection have atrophied so much that she has a really hard time holding herself up without a corset and if she keeps at it chances are that one day she won't be able to hold herself up at all without the help of a faja.
Tha's insane you guys. If you want to wear a faja to help you get a smaller waist, by all means do it, pero don't go overboard, okay?
Images via kimkardashian, khloekardashian/Instagram
