When Looks Can Kill

When Looks Can Kill

Pain in beauty

There’s something comical about an injury where vanity is involved. A woman in Australia recently made headlines around the world when she was taken to hospital due to the tightness of her skinny jeans. The woman, who has been granted name suppression, had just finished helping a friend move house when she felt numbness in her feet. Finding it difficult to walk, she later passed out on the sidewalk. The action of squatting for a prolonged period of time combined with the tightness of her jeans reduced blood supply to the muscles in her legs, weakening her ankles. Throughout the day, her jeans became tighter with the swelling of the muscles, compressing the adjacent nerves. Doctors later discovered she had suffered compartment syndrome, damaging the muscles and nerves in her calves. After being cut out of her jeans and hooked up to an IV for four days in hospital, she was free to walk again. Her case was considered so unique, it was put forward to the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, presenting a new health complication of wearing tight jeans while performing physical activity. Now that we’ve been formally warned about skinny jeans, what other fashion oversights could be detrimental to our health?

Oversized bags

The oversized bag is making a strong comeback for spring 2015, causing a client increase for masseurs and chiropractors globally. Popularised by celebrity culture, the oversized bag is a perfect accent for the hoarder on the move. If you’re constantly switching shoulders and hitching up your bag, perhaps you should consider what’s really causing this discomfort. That aching and shooting pain you’re feeling, whether it be in the top of your neck or further down your arm, is you yanking down on a web of nerves. This pack horse appearance you’re working is really just overworking your upper back muscles. As these muscles strain, stabilising your shoulder blade to deal with the weight of six years of gum wrappers, you’re overworking your muscles and setting yourself up for sharp pains that can be induced by the smallest of movements. Also, bear in mind that this imbalance of weight is causing the trunk of your body to tilt. This compensation is adding stress to your lower back. But, at the end of the day, fashion always comes down to personal preference. You need to consider whether fashionably lugging round a case of vitamin water and several Karen Walker jewellery options is worth the Quasimodo look you’ll be sporting in 2025.

High heels

If you managed to justify spending your Scrumpy money to see the new Jurassic Park film, Jurassic World, I’m sure you can guess where we’re headed next. In the film, we view protagonist Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) personify the regression of feminism in Hollywood with her nude stilettos. Back arched and pelvis forward, Howard sprints and crouches as she flees from the genetically modified hybrid mutant dinosaur, Indominus Rex. Even as her assistant is chowed down by a pteranodon, I was still more concerned with the state of the leading lady’s feet. But enough spoilers for the moment, let’s focus on the real antagonist of this film, the stiletto. Made popular by the societal need to cause pain in order achieve beauty, the stiletto heel and others in its intimate footwear family have been causing damage to our feet for centuries. The constant cramming of feet into the devil’s Prada can cause ingrown toenails, bunions, nerve damage and even irreversible damage to leg tendons. Even though you could bounce a coin off that booty in them heels, by pushing your lower back forward you’re forcing both your hips and spine out of alignment. Not to mention, the pressure you’re putting on your knees could turn that booty pop into a less desired knee pop or hip lock. Arguably, your pins be looking killer, but perhaps the real killer is that of your ability to walk. If you’re hesitant about making the change, at least stretch before and after wearing your heels, avoid wearing them for long periods of time and try to set a two-inch limit. Oh, and for those interested in an extra spoiler … according to Jurrassic World’s Chris Pratt, his co-star “never once rolled an ankle or popped a knee or anything”. Lucky.

Jandals

Now for a national issue, let’s talk about jandals. In terms of footwear design, this is about as prehistoric as you can get: rubber based with a Y-shaped thong, clinging desperately to the bottom of your foot. This indiscretion of Kiwi culture somehow manages to define a nation while painfully chiselling away between your toes. But don’t worry, eventually evolution kicks in and a nice protective callus forms that will safeguard you through future wear. But let’s look at a couple of issues evolution is yet to cover. Although they are free and breezy, your beloved jandals are not providing you the support you need for healthy feet. The previously discussed desperate clinging to the bottom of your foot is causing you to overuse the muscles in your toes. This can cause tedonitis, the inflammation of tendons connecting the muscle to the bone. Your walk in the park could turn out to be no walk in the park: a tremendous amount of pain and strain to your feet could eventually rupture your the tendons. Wear your jandals too often and you’re looking at stress fractures — tiny cracks in the bones of your feet. The problems continue to climb up your body, though, as your jandals can also alter your biomechanics and affect your posture, slowly allowing you to regress back into a caveman stance. The savage odour rising from your feet will add to your primal state as jandals expose your feet to bacterial, viral and fungal infections, some of which you’ll carry for life. All this aside, whenever we see someone wearing jandals in the middle of Dunedin’s winter, aren’t we really just looking out for that blackened toe? Let us not suffer for our fashion choices, primitive Dunedin males — dress for your climate.

Jeggings

A fashion faux pas classic that can also jeopardise your health are the much discussed, highly controversial jeggings. If the public heckling and social media outrage weren’t off-putting enough and you’re still squeezing yourself into this jean-legging hybrid, perhaps you should consider the implications of this severe fashion fuck-up. This tight-fitting stretch piece in all its acrylic glory simply doesn’t allow your crotch to breathe. Condemning your crotch to this slimming synthetic hellhole allows the perfect environment for bacterial growth — causing what rhymes with priest infection. A looser garment will allow more air circulation and keep your skin dry. This scenario, however, does not apply to leggings. As this fashion item was initially designed for sportswear, something clearly not registered by Dunedin’s basic bitch population, some legging designs actually allow for extra heat and moisture and therefore won’t be detrimental to your genital health.

Spanx

Celebrity culture is at it again with the billion dollar business that is Spanx, and if America’s doing it, we must blindly follow. We all know America considers Oprah’s word as gospel, and she’s preaching Spanx: “I love Spanx, I love Spanx. I wear Spanx every single day. I’ve given up panties. I wear Spanx!” So the woman loves her Spanx, but I bet her internal organs don’t. When your body starts to look like sausage meat oozing out of its casing, it might be time to consider what these tight shapewear garments are doing to your internal health. Spanx and other shapewear garments work by being tight, but this tightness is compressing your stomach, intestine and colon, which can worsen heartburn and acid reflux and provoke erosive esophagitis. Moving down below, the pressure on your bowels can put anyone with functional bowel disorders or irritable bowel syndrome at risk of an unexpected defecation. Staying with the topic of humiliation, the pressure on your bladder can cause a similar outcome. Relying on these next-level granny panties to hold you together weakens your muscles, worsening your posture and muscle definition. Mirroring our heart-to-heart about jeggings, kneading yourself into your Spanx also doesn’t allow much room for airflow. This leaves you with a nice squelchy juicing of sweat between you and your beloved acrylic coating, putting you at risk of developing both yeast and bacterial infections. When considering whether to shed your second silicone skin, make sure you take your Spanx off slowly as the shallow breaths you take when you’re hoisted into this fashion fad can cause you to feel faint and more delusional than normal. It’s a tough decision though. There’s nothing more attractive than a compressed colon.

Male skinny jeans

For years men and women have been adopting each other’s styles, including when it comes to jeans. But somehow, the boyfriend jean seems a little more logical than the girlfriend jean. When it comes to fashion, gender should be irrelevant. However, when it comes to jeans there is a little something something more biological for men to consider that may limit their style options. Tight fitted jeans have been said to be at the root of a number of men’s health issues. The prolonged wearing of such compact pants can cause bladder weakness and urinary tract infections: trading in those tight white jockeys for huggies may be less than desirable. Binding your meatless bone for a prolonged period of time can put you with the 50 percent of men who have experienced groin pain from their skin-hugging slacks. As with Spanx and leggings for your female counterpart, your male skinnies are steaming your dimsums. Boiling your balls in a broth of your own making provides a breeding ground perfect for fungal infections. Even more so if you’re going commando, plus that zipper has always been a concern when it comes to the male anatomy. Though many of you may not yet have babies on the brain, you could run into problems later in life with your lowered sperm count. Twisted testicals occurs when the tightness of your trousers prevents the spermatic cord from moving freely, requiring immediate surgery to avoid a gangrenous gonad. So when squeezing that apple bottom into those jeans, give a thought to your one-eyed ranger and his two amigos because trading in comfort for style may not always bring you out on top.

This article first appeared in Issue 18, 2015.
Posted 1:27pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Brittany Pooley.