For a time corsets looked like they were gone and confined to history books. Corsets are designed to gird the torso and shape it according to the fashionable silhouette of the day. But after a string of movies empasing their use by women in the past, they seem to have made a fast come back. Movies such as Moulin Rouge helped bring them back into fashion and thousands of women are now wearing corsets as fashionable items. But while wearing a corset can help you mold and shape the torso into a desired shape or figure, it can also put you at risk of a weakened abdominal, make you have indigestion and also make your lower back muscles weak.

As an example, a tight lacing corset can put as much as 40kg (or 80lb) of pressure per square inch on your torso. This may result in you having difficulty breathing and could also cause indigestion as noted above. After centuries of using them health professionals started discouraging women from using them because they were found to be too much of a squeeze on the ribcage and would push kidneys and lungs out of place.  Cases have also been reported where using a corset made the spine curve and caused infertility by dislodging the uterus. Recent studies have shown that using them regularly can impede lung function by a third (about 33%).

If people new the effect corsets have on their health, many people would not use them. There is no problem if you only use a corset occasionally, but if you use them regularly, then you need to think hard about it. If you wear them constantly, your muscles in the back, stomach and pelvis will become weaker - this often leads to back problems.

If you are wearing corsets because you are obese or overweight, the best advice is to lose the excess fat and weight by getting yourself on a weight loss program. If you have a history of heart problems or if you suffer from bad circulation, doctors recommend that you avoid wearing a corset completely because they restrict blood flow.