Tight Clothing
We need to take a look at our self and examine the things we are doing and know if we are being the right influence to those that behold us.
The fashions the devil is presenting to us are separating us from God.
Modern science is discovering the malicious effects of the tight clothing so prevalent in society now. The body cannot function properly under pressure. The lungs need lots of oxygen to be able to keep cleaning out the waste and toxins throughout the body. The organs get moved out of their proper place when they are all jammed together with tight clothes as well as the digestion being impaired and slowed down. The blood is not
able to distribute evenly its life giving strength. The lymph system is greatly damaged by compression as it moves through the body on its own without a pump like the heart does for the blood. This work of the lymph system is to clean out the garbage but it can be hindered or stopped and start forming diseases when tight clothes are keeping it from its proper job. Science has found that these conditions can produce breast cancer.
Ministry Of Healing p 271
At every pulsation of the heart the blood should make its way quickly and easily to all parts of the body. Its circulation should not be hindered by tight clothing or bands, or by insufficient clothing of the extremities. Whatever hinders the circulation forces the blood back to the vital organs, producing congestion. Headache, cough, palpitation of the heart, or indigestion is often the result.
Healthful Living PG 58
Very many children are born with their blood tainted with scrofula through the wrong habits of the mother in her eating and dressing. . . . These fashionably dressed women cannot transmit good constitutions to their children. . . . Wasp waists may have been transmitted to them from their mothers, as the result of their sinful practice of tight lacing, and in consequence of imperfect breathing. Poor children born of these miserable slaves of fashion have diminished vitality, and are predisposed to disease. . . . The impurities retained in the system in consequence of improper breathing are transmitted to their offspring.
Teaching the Fundamental Principles of Dress PG 426
Tight bands or waists hinder the action of the heart and lungs and should be avoided. No part of the body should at any time be made uncomfortable by clothing that compresses any organ or restricts its freedom of movement. The clothing of all children should be loose enough to admit of the freest and fullest respiration, and so arranged that the shoulders will support its weight.
Healthful Living PG 171
The compression of the waist by tight lacing prevents the waste matter from being thrown off through its natural channels. The most important of these is the lungs. In order for the lungs to do the work designed, they must be left free, without the slightest compression. If the lungs are cramped, they cannot develop; but their capacity will be diminished, making it impossible to take a sufficient inspiration of air. The abdominal muscles were designed to aid the lungs in their action. Where there is no compression of the lungs, the motion in full breathing will be observed to be mostly of the abdomen. . . . When tight lacing is practiced, the lower part of the chest has not sufficient room for action. The breathing, therefore, is confined to the upper portion of the lungs, where there is not sufficient room to carry on the work. But the lower part of the lungs should have the greatest freedom possible. The compression of the waist will not allow free action of the muscles of the respiratory organs.
Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene PG 88
The dangers resulting from compression of the waist are not realized by the majority of women, though many able pens have treated upon the subject. Many claim that tight-lacing is now nearly or quite abandoned, and such may think these remarks are uncalled-for; but it is true to-day that the clothing of most women is worn too tight for the proper action of the vital organs. Every article of dress upon the person should be worn so loose that in raising the arms the clothing will be correspondingly lifted.
Selected Messages Book 2
PG 468
When the limbs and arms are chilled, the blood is driven from these parts to the lungs and head. The circulation is impeded, and nature's fine machinery does not move harmoniously. The system of the infant is deranged, and it cries and mourns because of the abuse it is compelled to suffer. The mother feeds it, thinking it must be hungry, when food only increases its suffering. Tight bands and an overloaded stomach do not agree. It has no room to breathe. It may scream, struggle and pant for breath, and yet the mother not mistrust the cause. She could relieve the sufferer at once, at least of tight bandages, if she understood the nature of the case. She at length becomes alarmed, and thinks her child really ill, and summons a doctor, who looks gravely upon the infant a few moments and then deals out poisonous medicines, or something called a soothing cordial, which the mother, faithful to directions, pours down the throat of the abused infant. If it was not diseased in reality before, it is after this process. It suffers now from drug-disease, the most stubborn and incurable of all diseases. If it recovers, it must bear about more or less in its system the effects of that poisonous drug, and it is liable to spasms, heart disease, dropsy on the brain, or consumption. Some infants are not strong enough to bear even a trifle of drug-poisons, and as nature rallies to meet the intruder, the vital forces of the tender infant are too severely taxed, and death ends the scene.
The Health Reformer
December 1, 1871
…..But I often hear young ladies exclaim, "Why, my dress is not tight; if I should wear it looser, I should feel that I was dropping to pieces." We want no better evidence that the dress is worn very much too tight than that as soon as the dress is loosened, the wearer feels as though dropping to pieces. The compressed muscles have suspended action in a great measure, and have become enfeebled, and partially paralyzed, so that when the pressure is removed, they cannot act their part in sustaining the system until they have time to recover from the abusive compression. And, again, the blood has been hindered in its flow through the veins, by the tight corsets. Remove the pressure, and nature makes an effort to force the blood into the contracted veins, which causes pain. The muscles and veins require time to recover from the abuse that has enfeebled them, and that nature may perform her work as she would have done had she been left to herself.
The Health Reformer
April 1, 1872
I have heard young ladies complain of pain in the side when in a sitting position. I have found upon examination that the only cause was the tight bands pressing upon the tender nerves and veins, impeding the free circulation of blood. When the under clothing, as well as the dress waist, was made loose, and all the garments were suspended from the shoulders by straps, the pain disappeared. The skirts dragging upon the hips hinder the blood from being conducted freely to and from the limbs, and also prevent active exercise by impeding locomotion. The clothing should be worn so loose as to give the most perfect freedom of circulation, respiration, and the exercise of every portion of the body.
Selected Messages Book 2
PG 469
Mothers who have troublesome, fretful infants, should study into the cause of their uneasiness. By so doing, they will often see that something is wrong in their management. It is often the case, that the mother becomes alarmed by the symptoms of illness manifested by her child, and hurriedly summons a physician, when the infant's sufferings would have been relieved by taking off its tight clothing, and putting upon it garments properly loose and short, that it may use its feet and limbs. Mothers should study from cause to effect. If the child has taken cold, it is generally owing to the wrong management of the mother….. The arms being naked, exposes the infant to constant cold, and congestion of lungs or brain. These exposures prepare the way for the infant to become sickly and dwarfed.
Selected Messages Book 2
PG 478
The female form should not be compressed in the least with corsets and whalebones. The dress should be perfectly easy that the lungs and heart may have healthy action….
Counsels on Diet and Foods
PG 104 (1905)
The lungs should be allowed the greatest freedom possible. Their capacity is developed by free action; it diminishes if they are cramped and
compressed. Hence the ill effects of the practice so common, especially in sedentary pursuits, of stooping at one's work. In this position it is impossible to breathe deeply. Superficial breathing soon becomes a habit, and the lungs lose their power to expand. A similar effect is produced by tight lacing. . . .
Counsels on Health PG 92
Tight lacing does not improve the form. One of the chief elements in physical beauty is symmetry, the harmonious proportion of parts. And the correct model for physical development is to be found, not in the figures displayed by French modistes, but in the human form as developed according to the laws of God in nature. God is the author of all beauty, and only as we conform to His ideal shall we approach the standard of true beauty.
Healthful Living PG 184
Look at the tight-fitting waists of the dresses of these children. It is impossible for their lungs to have full action. The heart and liver cannot do their work, thus compressed..... Look at their limbs, unclad except by the slight covering of cotton stockings . . . . The air chills the limbs, the life current is driven back from its natural course, and the limbs are robbed of their proportion of blood. The blood, which should be induced to the extremities by their being properly clad, is thrown back upon the internal organs. There is too much blood in the head. The lungs are congested or the liver is burdened; by interrupting the circulation of the blood, the entire system is deranged.
The Health Reformer
November 1, 1871
"A FEMALE SERVANT DIED SUDDENLY A SHORT TIME SINCE IN THE EAST. THE DOCTOR COULD NOT ACCOUNT FOR THE DEATH, AND MADE A POST-MORTEM
EXAMINATION, WHICH SHOWED THAT THE STOMACH HAD BEEN REDUCED TO THE SIZE OF A CHILD'S, AND THE HEART
PUSHED OUT OF ITS PROPER PLACE THROUGH TIGHT-LACING."
The Health Reformer
November 1, 1871
"'BUT MY WAIST IS NATURALLY SLENDER,' SAYS ONE WOMAN. SHE
MEANS THAT SHE HAS INHERITED SMALL LUNGS. HER ANCESTORS, MORE OR LESS OF THEM, COMPRESSED THEIR LUNGS IN THE SAME WAY THAT WE DO, AND IT HAS BECOME IN HER CASE A CONGENITAL DEFORMITY. THIS LEADS US TO ONE OF THE WORST ASPECTS IN THE WHOLE MATTER -- THE TRANSMITTED RESULTS OF
INDULGENCE IN THIS DEADLY VICE. AND IT SHOWS ITSELF IN DIMINISHED VITALITY AND IN LIABILITY TO TAKE ON DISEASE OF MANY KINDS. A MOTHER MAY EVEN MAKE HER CHILD SCROFULOUS BY HER IMPERFECT BREATHING DURING THE PERIOD OF GESTATION, AND MANY A MOTHER DOES SO. ALMOST ALL THE READING PUBLIC, VERY POSSIBLY ALL WHOSE EYES FALL UPON THESE LINES, HAVE BEEN TOLD AGAIN AND AGAIN HOW THE TIGHTNESS OF THE CLOTHING ABOUT THE WAIST AND ABDOMEN (PLEASE REMEMBER MY DEFINITION OF TIGHTNESS) DISPLACES THE YIELDING VISCERA WITHIN, PRESSING THEM UPWARD UPON THE LUNGS AND DOWNWARD UPON THE PELVIS, AND PRODUCES DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY ALL THE FEMALE COMPLAINTS TO WHICH THEGENERATION IS SO LARGELY SUBJECT. ONE MEDICAL WRITER DECLARES THAT THIS INFLUENCE UPON THE ORGANS IN THE LOWER
PART OF THE ABDOMEN IS SO GREAT THAT IT FURNISHES TO THE MEDICAL PROFESSION NEARLY HALF ITS BUSINESS,' NOTWITHSTANDING THE FACT THAT MANY WOMEN AND YOUNG GIRLS FROM NATIVE DELICACY KEEP THEIR SUFFERINGS TO THEMSELVES. THE VERY LIST OF THESE COMPLAINTS IS ALARMING, AND THERE IS NO QUESTION BUT THE PUBLIC AT LARGE, AND EVEN WOMEN THEMSELVES, HAVE VERY LITTLE IDEA HOW MUCH THEY SUFFER IN THIS WAY FROM THE EFFECTS OF TIGHT DRESS.
The Health Reformer
November 1, 1871
"OF COURSE, IN THIS FORM IT DOES NOT END WITH THE INDIVIDUAL, UNLESS SHE DIES BEFORE MARRIAGE, OR SO UTTERLY DISABLES HERSELF THAT SHE CANNOT BEAR CHILDREN AT ALL, WHICH IS NOT UNFREQUENTLY THE CASE. IF NOT QUITE SO BAD AS THAT, SHE IS STILL OFTEN UNABLE TO COMPLETE HER TIME, AND THE LITTLE ONE FALLS OUT OF BEING
FROM SHEER LACK OF THE
VITALITY WHICH THE MOTHER HAS NOT BEEN ABLE TO GIVE IT. SHE CANNOT TAKE NEARLY
BREATH FOR ONE, MUCH LESS FOR TWO. A LARGE PROPORTION OF THE ALARMING NUMBER OF MISCARRIAGES IN RESPECTABLE SOCIETY IS DIRECTLY DUE TO TIGHT DRESSING. I MET A LADY
A FEW DAYS SINCE WHO WOULD HAVE BEEN A BEAUTIFUL AND QUEENLY WOMAN BUT FOR THIS
DEFORMITY (HER WAIST WAS LESS THAN HALF THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF HER SHOULDERS), AND I WAS
NOT AT ALL SURPRISED TO LEARN THAT A FEW MONTHS BEFORE SHE HAD COME WITHIN A FEW MINUTES OF DEATH FROM THIS CAUSE.
The Health Reformer
November 1, 1871
"CORSETS."
AMONG THE CAUSES WHICH PREVENT MUSCULAR EXERCISE, THE COMPRESSION OF THE CHEST BY CORSETS IS THE MOST REMARKABLE. WHERE ON THE EARTH, OR UNDER THE EARTH, OR IN THE WATERS, OR IN THE AIR, IN THINGS ANIMATE OR INANIMATE, THIS FASHION FOUND ITS ORIGINAL MODEL, UNLESS IT BE IN THE VENOMOUS WASP, IT WOULD BE HARD TO DISCOVER. TRADITION INSISTS THAT CORSETS WERE INVENTED BY A BUTCHER OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY, AS A PUNISHMENT FOR HIS WIFE. FINDING NOTHING TO STOP HER LOQUACITY, HE PUT A PAIR OF STAYS ON HER TO TAKE AWAY HER BREATH, AND SO PREVENT HER FROM GOING ABOUT AND TALKING. THIS EFFECTUAL PUNISHMENT WAS INFLICTED BY OTHER CRUEL HUSBANDS, TILL AT LAST THERE WAS SCARCELY A WIFE IN ALL LONDON WHO WAS NOTTIED UP IN THIS MANNER. THEPUNISHMENT BECAME SO UNIVERSAL AT LAST, THAT THE LADIES, IN THEIR DEFENSE, MADE A FASHION OF IT, AND SO IT HAS CONTINUED TO THE PRESENT TIME. THE FORM GIVEN BY CORSETS TO THE FEMALE CHEST IS DIRECTLY OPPOSED TO GRECIAN AND ROMAN MODELS OF BEAUTY."
The Health Reformer
December 1, 1871
Tight lacing forces the ribs out of their natural position, and crowds them upon the lungs. When the pressure is removed for any length of time, and the lungs are allowed to have room to be filled with air, the ribs are thrown out more to their natural position. This change, for the time being, causes pain. But if loose dresses are worn constantly, all these disagreeable sensations will disappear, and a wonderful sense of freedom and relief will be experienced.
The Youth's Instructor
April 7, 1898
If young men and women would grow up to the full stature of Christ Jesus, they must treat themselves intelligently. Conscientiousness in methods of education is as essential as in the consideration of the doctrines of our faith. Unhealthful habits of every order -- late hours at night, late hours in bed in the morning, rapid eating -- are to be overcome. Masticate your food thoroughly. Let there be no hurried eating. Have your room well ventilated day and night, and perform useful physical labor. Tight is a sin, and will bring its sure results. The lungs, the liver, and the heart need all the room the Lord has provided for them. Your Creator understood how much room the heart and liver require in order to act their part in the human organism. Let not Satan tempt you to crowd the delicate organs, so that they shall be trammeled in their work. Do not, because the fashion of this degenerate world requires it, so crowd the life forces that they will have no freedom. Satan suggested all such fashions, that the human family might suffer the sure results of abusing God's handiwork.