The thin end of the wedge

Waist trainers are marketed – without evidence as a way to shave off inches and aid fat loss. But, finds Ellie Muir, they can often harm the way women think about their bodies

- 

At the slight age of 16, Chloe* would button herself into a waist training belt before leaving the house. She would wear the corset-style device - a long piece of tight fabric that squashes the torso into a smaller size - at the gym, to school, or to sleep. Her vision board was Kylie Jenner, the half-sister of Kim Kardashian, and her hourglass figure, contoured cheekbones and plump lips (this period where Jenner's influence on young girls was at its peak is known on the internet as the “King Kylie” era).

Chloe, now 26, found it hard to resist. “Among my friends, there was this competition to see how long you can keep the waist trainer on for, or what size you could go down to,” she tells me. She noticed others taking it further: some of her peers would wear two at once for extra cinch. “I would wear it under a really tight top I owned, and a pair of high-waisted skinny jeans,” she says. “When I look back at it, I do feel quite sad because I was so young.”

That was a decade ago, when it was quickly dismissed by older women who looked on in disbelief as the young used their pocket money to buy whatever trainer Jenner was endorsing. Shockingly, despite the online discourse at the time, the waist trainer trend is making a comeback. And it’s not just teens embracing it this time.

Online, you'll find swathes of influencers recommending wearing them overnight as part of a regimented viral beauty routine, known as the morning shed. The trend sees influencers apply a ludicrous number of different ointments, creams and beauty hack devices before they sleep, which they film themselves peeling off the following morning. Among waist compression devices, there are overnight face masks for clearer skin, elasticated chin straps to apparently achieve a defined jawline, and nose tape to manipulate the shape of the nose bridge without surgery. The list goes on.