Are Waist Trainers Just A Waste, And Are Posture Fixers A Quick Fix?
Yesterday, we asked you for your opinions on waist trainers and posture-fixing harnesses, and got the above-depicted, below-described set of results:
- The most popular response was “Waist trainers are purely cosmetic, so useless. Posture-fixers have merit”, with a little over a quarter of the votes.
- The least popular response was “Both are great tools to help us to optimal waist size and posture, respectively!”
- The other three answers each got a little under a quarter of the vote. In terms of discrete data, these were all 7±1, so basically, there was nothing in it.
The sample size was smaller than usual—perhaps the cluster of American holiday dates yesterday and today kept people busy! But, pressing on…
What does the science say?
Waist trainers are purely cosmetic, so, useless. True or False?
True, simply. Honestly, they’re not even that great for cosmetic purposes. They will indeed cinch in your middle, and this shape will be retained for a (very) short while after uncinching, because your organs have been squished inwards and may take a short while to get back to where they are supposed to be.
The American Board of Cosmetic Surgery may not be an unbiased source, but we’re struggling to find scientists who will even touch one of these, so, let’s see what these doctors have to say:
- Waist training can damage vital organs
- You will be slowly suffocating yourself
- Waist training simply doesn’t work
- You cannot drastically change your body shape with a piece of fabric*
Read: ABCS | 4 Reasons to Throw Your Waist Trainer in the Trash
*”But what about foot-binding?”—feet have many bones, whose growth can be physically restricted. Your waist has:
- organs: necessary! (long-term damage possible, but they’re not going away)
- muscles: slightly restrictable! (temporary restriction; no permanent change)
- fat: very squeezable! (temporary muffin; no permanent change)
Posture correctors have merit: True or False?
True—probably, and as a stepping-stone measure only.
The Ergonomics Health Association (a workplace health & safety organization) says:
❝Looking at the clinical evidence of posture correctors, we can say without a doubt that they do work, just not for everyone and not in the same way for all patients.❞
Source: Do Posture Correctors Work? Here’s What Our Experts Think
That’s not very compelling, so we looked for studies, and found… Not much, actually. However, what we did find supported the idea that “they probably do help, but we seriously need better studies with less bias”:
That is also not a compelling title, but here is where it pays to look at the studies and not just the titles. Basically, they found that the results were favorable to the posture-correctors—the science itself was just trash:
❝ The overall findings were that posture-correcting shirts change posture and subjectively have a positive effect on discomfort, energy levels and productivity.
The quality of the included literature was poor to fair with only one study being of good quality. The risk of bias was serious or critical for the included studies. Overall, this resulted in very low confidence in available evidence.❞
Since the benefit of posture correctors like this one is due to reminding the wearer to keep good posture, there is a lot more (good quality!) science for wearable biofeedback tech devices, such as this one:
Spine Cop: Posture Correction Monitor and Assistant
Take care!
