00:00Science. Women. Wyance. Hi, I'm Laura Wilcox and this is FEM-Ed. I'm your
00:07scientific ambassador in this series. Sure, I'm not technically a scientist or
00:13medical doctor by society's unrealistic standards, but I had scoliosis when I was
00:18a teenager, so I know a lot about medicine stuff. Today on FEM-Ed Waist
00:24Trainers, it was the great social scientist Sir Mixlot who once said, little
00:28in the middle, but she got much back. Dr. Mix-a-Lot's words highlight our
00:32culture's obsession with the hourglass figure. Why do we revere the hourglass
00:37figure? Well, on a biological level, women with a 0.7 waist-to-hip ratio, which is a
00:44waist that's significantly smaller than the hips, are seen as more fertile, more
00:48likely to produce healthy offspring. So little in the middle and you got more
00:52kids. And on a social and cultural level, there are the Kardashians, a group
00:59of women who have taken to Instagram to tout the waist trainer as a magical
01:03device that can help any woman mold her body into an hourglass figure. I would
01:11never drink chemicals. So this is a waist trainer. I'm gonna conduct an empirical
01:16study to see if it works and if women should be using it. I will begin by trying
01:21it out on myself.
01:37This is a large, just no power. I feel like I'm gonna snap my ribs.
01:45Right in my nuts? Here.
01:57I gotta go to a doctor.
02:01I spoke to my colleague, Dr. Holly Phillips, about the waist trainer. Dr. Holly is a general
02:06internist, primarily treating women. And while I didn't opt to pursue an advanced
02:10degree in medicine, I think it's clear that I can rise to meet Dr. Holly at her level.
02:15When I put this on, describe to me what's happening to my internal organs.
02:20The MRI that I saw on my patient who was wearing one at the time, you can actually
02:26see her ribs moving into her liver. So the liver had ripples where the ribs were. She
02:37was sort of like if you have like a tube of squeezed cheese. You can squeeze it, but the
02:43cheese is gonna squirt out.
02:45People that I've talked to who wear these say at first it's very hard and then it seems
02:49to get easier and easier and easier. I think they're just getting better at blocking out
02:54their pain.
02:55Wow. That's something horrifying about that thought. Would you ever recommend this to any
03:01of your patients? No. This isn't like going to permanently give me that hourglass figure
03:06that I want? No. A lot of women in America get their medical advice from the Kardashians,
03:12which is another question actually. Do you feel like they're a threat to your field?
03:17No. I hope that scoliosis becomes like the hot thing. Why do you think a woman would wear
03:26something like this? I think this is just for like image and like it's not actually being healthy.
03:31If you could just like give a pull. Do you feel like it makes a woman look sexier? No.
03:37Sure. I don't know what's going on here. This is a large by the way. Do you want to try
03:42it
03:42on? I don't. I would never try that. Maybe we'll start in the middle. I feel like that's
03:48the worst place to start. Do you think that there's like a male equivalent of the waist trainer?
03:54Uh, two pay? Do you have a message out there for all the ladies who might think that they
04:01need to try this? Don't. If this makes you happy, you haven't found real happiness.
04:07I can't keep going. I'll start screaming. You're a terrible lady in waiting.
04:17Ladies, thank you so much for taking this scientific journey with me. After exhaustive research
04:23and compiling all of the data, I have determined that this waist trainer innovation is basically
04:30just a corset that requires an entire football team to put on. Seriously. I had so many people
04:37try to help me and couldn't get it on. Should you wear a waist trainer? Well, really, it's
04:43up to you. If this sort of thing is important to you, then go for it. Look, there are tons
04:47of pressures from the biological side, from society telling you to have an hourglass figure.
04:53But at the end of the day, you need to look inside of you. Will this make you feel good?
04:57Will this make you happy?
04:59Because when I look inside, I like where my organs are. So they're going to stay that way.
05:11Thanks for watching the waist trainer episode of Fem Ed. If you'd like to see more, subscribe
05:16or click one of our other videos. Subscribe, click one of our other videos. Subscribe, click
05:22one of our other videos. Watch them is what I'm saying. I tell my mom I'm a performer and I
05:30need
05:31you to click on them. Because otherwise, I'm just talking to nobody. I'm talking to myself. Please.
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