Breast binding advice during COVID-19

[DJLippy]

Saw this on my Facebook today and I'm raging. The advice is one thing but all the supportive comments. This is not ok. There is never a safe way to bind it is a very harmful practice and to do so during a pandemic that attacks the lungs. It's like pro-ana sights making 'safe starvation' plans or how to purge in a safe way. We dont encourage the hatred of the body in other patient groups. Do you think that 'transphobia' and terfs will get the blame if those who bind start dying at ridiculous rates?

Lost for words.

That's insane and horrific. If binding puts you at higher risk then just stop binding your perfectly healthy fucking chest for the fucking sake of...

goes away to weep into a pillow

Step one - it's a fucking pandemic, stop deliberately putting yourself more at risk.

Step two - repeat step one as needed.

Oh our poor poor girls 😭

How is this a good thing? Who’d have thought we would see the modern version of warning women with consumption to ‘loosen their corsets’ in 2020! Ridiculous to think what they will say about this in another 100 years!!

It seems like a sensible concession to me: clearly the sort of person this advice is aimed at is unlikely to listen to advice to 'just don't do it at all' so harm minimisation is preferable to ignoring them.

That isn't the approach taken when a teenager has an eating disorder, Gronky, so why do it this way with binding?

Gasp0de, I agree that cessation is the best outcome but I don't believe that, in cases where that hasn't worked, harm reduction shouldn't be employed. I understand that harm reduction can be counterproductive in some cases (e.g. the aforementioned 'safe starvation' example offering an option which might reduce interest on total cessation) but zero tolerance is definitely harmful. Is this specifically aimed at teenagers?

In the example presented here an opener of 'binding is generally unsafe but, if you must, please take these precautions' would be preferable.

Where’s the anorexia fact sheet?

WHEN are people going to realise this is a mental illness, who has NOT noticed the link between this and eating disorders!

I ran rings around my doctors and parents when anorexic. I would drink 3 litres of water before weighing. But my Mum persisted, she had me sectioned. I was 34 kilos at the age of 19 and no one gave me advice to diet half the time!

I'm so angry. I saw that film made with the girl who had bound so much she said she couldn't play any sports and had difficulty walking, because of respiratory problems. How is the medical profession letting these girls down so badly?!

Reminds me of the women in ye olden days who would almost kill themselves to get the teens waists with corsets and taking out ribs. Or foot binding.

Binding is never safe.
It is a harmful practice.
It should never be promoted.

And Asian women removing ribs to have a more hour-glass shape.

Sorry Lord saw your post.. rib removal is still very rife.,

You are kidding? For the love of god - why? I wonder if there is anything similar that men do?

According to a friend from Singapore, Asian women can often not have much of a curve between hips and shoulders - so some aspiring models remove 1 or sometimes 2 sets of ribs to emulate the Marilyn Munroe look.

In the example presented here an opener of 'binding is generally unsafe but, if you must, please take these precautions' would be preferable.

Preferable to me would be if the organisations and people who are supposed to be looking out for the young and vulnerable, stopped encouraging breast binding and started talking to girls about why they hate their body so much. This is a "kids are going to do anyway so let's make sure that they do it safely" kind of situation, this is a new phenomenon and ten years ago it just would not be happening in the numbers that it is now.

Sorry - this is NOT* a "kids are going to do anyway so let's make sure that they do it safely" kind of situation

We are told some women have penises, get over it, so why the fuck can't some men have breasts?

And no one has ever been able to answer that... I suspect the reasons behind either group wanting to present as a different sex than at birth are very different.

Thinking back to my psych placement, the psychiatrists would actually give the self harming patients advice on how to self harm more safely. Things like using a rubber band to cause pain instead of cutting, and advice on how to avoid infections from wounds etc. The difference with the self harm patients was that the psychiatrists were also working to stop the patients from doing it at all. They weren't encouraging it and claiming it was normal and acceptable behaviour!

"kids are going to do anyway so let's make sure that they do it safely" kind of situation

I think there's a subtle but significant difference between 'they're going to do it anyway' (I've not seen evidence this is specifically aimed at kids) and 'those that are going to do it anyway should be given this advice to minimise harm'. I understand why neither sentiment might be acceptable but, unless you want to totally suspend autonomy, a 'zero tolerance' approach is generally more harmful than a combined approach. People do harmful things to their bodies every day and I believe that all that it's reasonable to do is to inform them about the risks and help those who wish to quit unless their lives are in immediate danger.

For example, in the case of obesity-related disease, there's nothing which a gastric band can solve which can't be solved by a controlled diet (with less physical harm), yet, we still offer them to those who are unable to regulate their dietary intake. We could achieve the same results by imprisoning the overweight and obese with fewer physical side effects but I wouldn't support it, nor would I support banning gastric bands because they might encourage a small number of overweight individuals to not use diet control.