Piercings, tattoos, plastic surgery—there’s no shortage of examples of people modifying their bodies for aesthetics. But oftentimes, beauty is pain—at least in the case of Karen women of Southeast Asia.
Women of the Karen ethnicity in Northern Thailand traditionally wear brass coils that elongate the neck to give a giraffe-like appearance. A new study from Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism documents the cardiovascular repercussions.
Karen women begin wearing brass coils at a young age and gradually add more throughout their lifetimes.
“Two 66-year-old Karen women wearing brass neck coils were asked to remove their coils for the structural radiograph examinations,” reads the paper. “When they had their coils removed, their heads appeared to be very wobbly.”
Anthropologists are uncertain as to how this custom began, but many women agree that it is part of their cultural identity. Karen women typically begin wearing brass coils in childhood and progressively add more coils throughout their lifetime, with some women carrying an extra 5 kg of weight around their necks.
Rather than lengthening the neck, the weighty coils have been shown to give the elongated appearance by compressing and deforming the collarbone and ribs. However, little information is available regarding the physiological and circulatory repercussions of wearing the coils long term.
In the new study, 14 Karen women that habitually wore neck coils were compared to 14 Karen women that did not wear them. Additionally, 14 age-matched individuals living in cities were compared to control for the health effects of a rural lifestyle.
The study found that women with neck coils had higher blood pressure, lower respiratory function, and decreased circulation to the brain. Some of the women even had compression fractures to the upper back—possibly due to deformation of the muscles and skeleton and demineralization of the spine. Additionally, impaired circulation could result in early atrophy of the central nervous system.
“The results of the study provide the first evidence of reduced cardiovascular function in Karen long-neck women,” concludes the study. “Considering the present findings that Karen women wearing neck coils are at elevated risk of cardiorespiratory and cerebrovascular diseases, the development of appropriate health behaviors and programs to encourage safe physical activity in this population is urgently needed.”
Read the full study: Cardiorespiratory burden of brass neck coils placed on Kayan Karen long-neck women of Thailand in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism.
