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No woman wants to succumb to middles-age spread. But how many would go to the lengths. Cathie Jung has opted for?
The 69 year old has been wearing corsets, almost continuously, for the past 23 years.
The mother-of-three, whose vital statistics are 39-15-39, has just entered the Guinness Book of World Records for having the smalles adult waist on a living person in the world.
Cathie, from Old Mystic, Connecticut, already wore a corset when she marries her husband Bob, a surgeon, in 1959. But it wasn't until she reached 43 that she started going to extremes after deciding her 26-inch waist was too big. Cathie began wearing corsets for more than 23 hours a day. Over the next 26 years her target measerements got smaller, until she achieved 15 inches.
'I learnt to tighten it to the point of being uncomfortable for a period during the day. Then when you go to bed you loosen it until you just get used to it,' she says. But her unusual appearance has come at a price. 'My tummy's wrinkly and scarred with red marks from the laces,' says Cathie, describing her bare midriff. 'The most pain comes from the pressure on the lower ribs, where the corset is pushing in on you.'
In order for her waist to reach such tiny propotions, Cathie's internal organs have had to shift. 'My stomach has moved up and my bowels have gone down,' she says. Cathie believes her wasp waist defines the classic feminine figure. But she agrees her appearance is not for everyone. 'People either really like it of they hate it,' she says. When she removes her corset, her waist swells to 21 inches. Í'd look strange if I got any smaller,' she admits.
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