Daily Mail, Saterday April 16, 2005

By Elise Jenkins

Sorry, Kylie, but the real Corset Queeen has a waist of only 15 inches.

CATHIE JUNG’S astonishing figure-eight shape is a tribute to diet, willpower - and strong laces.
Also known as Queen of the Corsets, Mrs Jung measures an incredible 15in round the middle.
That has won the 68-year-old granny a place in Guinness World Records for the ‘smallest waist on a living person’, while making Kylie Minogue look positively portly. Kylie recently strapped herself into a wasp-waisted outfit for her Showgirls Tour and allegedly whittled her waist down to 16in - although corsetiere Mr Pearl insists it is more like 20in.

By contrast Mrs Jung, from Old Mystic, Connecticut, boasts the astonishing vital statistics of 39-15-39.
She achieves this by lacing herself into a corset 24 hours a day, removing it only to take a shower.
Mrs Jung was already wearing a corset when she married Bob Jung, an orthopaedic surgeon, in 1959 at the age of 22.
But it wasn’t until she reached 43 that she started going to extremes after deciding her 26in waist was far too big.
Her first goal was a modest 18in, which she achieved in 1989. Over the next few years her target measurements got smaller until at last she achieved 15in.

“The key to successful corset-wearing is a well-fitting corset, as well as not trying to achieve unreasonable reduction at any one time”, said Mrs Jung, who measures 21in around the waist when not restrained.
Husband Bob reverts to his medical training when referring to his wife’s extraordinary shape.
“As for the ribs, you’d be surprised by how much the chest is not impacted’, he says.
“Everything in the midriff is flexible. The bowels and stomach are hollow. One concern is dry skin”.