From The Straits Times    |

A woman who has achieved a 16-inch waist after removing some of her ribs may have to rely on wearing a corset to stay alive, The Mirror UK reported.
Ms Pixee Fox, a Swedish model now based in the United States, recently made headlines when she surgically removed six lower ribs in late October this year. Before she went under the knife, her natural waist measured about 24 inches. She also did “waist training” by progressively wearing smaller corsets over time.

The 25-year-old told the media that she aspires to have the hourglass figures of cartoon characters Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty and Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

She told The Daily Mail: “Those cartoon characters represent the idealisation of the female body .”

Besides undergoing numerous plastic surgery procedures, she also hits the gym to help mould her body into her desired physique. On her personal website and social media accounts, she calls herself a “body modification artist” and has a large online following. However, such an extreme transformation may cause her serious health problems.

During a television appearance, a health expert warned that wearing a corset for 24 hours a day will cause a person’s “liver, kidneys and everything else to not stay in their proper place.” Meanwhile, wearing such contraptions continually will also restrict a person’s breathing, damage skin and even bruise internal organs.

Even though she is aware of the potential risks, the young woman said in a Facebook post: “I love my new body because it is me. With it I can be the person I (have) always been on the inside. The person no one but me saw (sic) before. The feeling (of loving) your body is amazing”, she added.

Over the years, Ms Fox has spent nearly $120,000 (S$150,000) on 15 surgeries, which included breast augmentation, a butt lift as well as some work done on her face. However, she is not the only one who has taken extreme measures to achieve an idealised physique.

A woman from Germany also revealed that she had achieved a 16-inch waist by tight-lacing her corset which she has worn everyday for the past few years. She aspires to become the woman with the smallest waist in the world, a record currently held by Ms Cathie Jung from the United States, who has a 15-inch waist.