I love feeling comfortable with what I wear and still look good. A good feel on the inside and same on the outside. So I thought I would put together a brief article about fashion and health as let’s face it, we all want to look fabulous, but not at the detriment to our health.

Many consumers use online shopping methods to select apparel, and it is anticipated that this method of shopping will increase with more people using online apparel ‘‘try-on’’ methods to assess and select apparel. As companies develop more sophisticated methods of portraying fit in the online shopping session, how will the standardized avatar or a shopper’s scanned body form displayed on the screen affect a shopper’s perception of self, possibly affecting body satisfaction and overall health? The ideal fashion body may continue to hold sway and influence people, especially women, in negative ways. As fashion companies and web developers focus on how to influence shoppers, we propose that apparel and textiles researchers should become more directly involved in collaborative efforts with companies to assure a healthy shopping experience.

Heels

Yes you knew it was coming! We all love our heels don’t we but unfortunately a lot of the time those little blighters don’t love us back! It’s not just the odd blister or “ball ache” as I call it that put a downer on our night; there are a lot more serious health issues that occur. A lot of ladies have been treated for foot and ankle injuries as a result of wearing heels including fractures and broken bones! Ouch! I learned that long term wearing of heels could induce bunions, shortening of the Achilles tendon (making it painful to wear flats), Metatarsalgia, Plantar Fasciitis, arched toes and even ankle, knee and back strain.

Put Your Feet Up

Easy ways you can look after your feet at home is to regularly treat yourself to a pedicure. Soak your feet (I’m relaxed just thinking about it!) and dry with a soft towel, then carefully pumice your feet to remove any dead skin and then moisturise. I like to moisturise my feet every night before I get into bed to keep them feeling soft. Carefully trim your nails – always go straight across the nails and then finish with nail file. For any ingrown nails, don’t leave them; take a trip to your local Podiatrist or Chiropodist.

Also when you hit the shops for some new steps try them on in the afternoon when your feet will be slightly more swollen to account for differing in size throughout the day. If you have wider feet, don’t squeeze them into narrow shoes, look for wider fittings for example from Duo Shoes.

Do You have Good Foundations?

Most ladies wear the incorrect size, style or shape of bra. A lot of young girls these days are also wearing cheaper fashion bras which provide very little support at all and are only meant to be worn as fashion – not support.

You see bras are there for a reason – to provide support, yet so many women I see have their boobs in the wrong place! The right bra will make your waist look slimmer, your boobs look more youthful and toned and improve your posture tenfold.

The wrong bra on the other hand will make you look bigger, older and will make all your clothes look saggy and shapeless and the effect is that you look saggy and shapeless! Horror! Not only that but the effect of the bad posture may cause you shoulder, neck and back pain later in life, so better to get regularly fitted and spend a little more on your underwear which will give you a whole body lift! A cheaper and less painful alternative to plastic surgery I say!

Corsets

The Kardashian clan are “obsessed” with using corsets to “train” their waists. (Basically using a corset to squeeze your weight into submission). There’s essentially no evidence the process works, but efficacy aside, wearing corsets can be painful, make it hard to breathe, and could possibly result in rib damage according to some experts.

Neck ties

A small amount of evidence suggests wearing a neck tie that’s too tight could elevate intracranial pressure (though the study found that the raised levels were still within normal range), and possibly increase blood pressure in the eyes to unsafe levels. A couple studies by no means make neck ties a risk factor for serious health problems, but those who choose to don them may want to give themselves some breathing room.

Skinny Jeans

a case report published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry chronicles the woeful tale of a 35-year-old woman whose legs went numb while she was wearing skinny jeans. “Her legs and ankles had become so swollen that emergency room staff had to cut her jeans off. Her ankles and toes were weak, but the rest of her legs, including her knees and hips, were working normally,” Alice Park wrote. The perils of tight pants have been noted by health experts as far back as 1993, as the Wall Street Journal reports, internist Dr. Octavio Bessa coined the term “tight-pants syndrome” in a medical journal after reporting several men coming in with symptoms like abdominal discomfort. When Bessa compared the size of the pants to the abdominal girth, he found there was often a discrepancy. Men needed to loosen up. Tight pants are currently a trend among both men and women, and perhaps it’s not worth the fashion points.