Do 'slimming' body wraps actually work?

Move over juice cleanses, fasting and toning shoes, because there's a new ridiculous weight-loss queen in town: slimming body wraps.

If you haven't heard of them before, let me paint you a picture of how they work: after purchasing a tea-scented body wrap kit online, you simply place it on your stomach, wrap it all up with cling film and wait.

After 45 minutes, you unwrap your stomach, only to find that it's magically tighter, slimmer and less full of toxins than ever before... or so the marketing goes.

The theory is – if you can believe it – that the wraps contain organic blends of ingredients like seaweed and green tea which help to tighten and tone your tummy, as well as minimising cellulite appearance.

Many companies also play on a detoxifying angle, arguing that the all-natural secret ingredients work to remove toxins from the top layer of your skin, in turn reducing the amount of fat collecting in that area.

It may sound like total hokum, but body wraps bring with them powerful celebrity endorsements, bracing the Instagram feeds and television shows of people like Khloe Kardashian and Tyra Banks.

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So the question remains – do they actually work?

No, says founder of The Body Doctor and dietitian Dr Nara Lapsys – although some people might see small changes due to the amount of sweat that wrapping yourself in plastic creates.

"Overall you'd probably lose a bit more water from your body, which might be seen as transient weight loss," Lapsys tells Coach.

"But you would see the same effect if you had a sauna."

As Lapsys explains, wrapping yourself up in cling film is not a new phenomenon. From professional athletes looking to cut weight to the "sauna belt" fad of the 1980s, many people have tried to cash in on the seemingly-slimming properties of excess sweating.

"Body wrapping is the kind of thing that jockeys and MMA fighters do in order to cut weight. They sometimes wrap their body up and then place themselves in a warm environment," explains Lapsys.

"They sweat but don't cool down. This is because their skin is all wrapped up which raises their core temperature, and then they are unable to regulate their temp from the perspiration on their skin acting as a coolant mechanism."

Based off these principles, the only difference between a celebrity-endorsed body wrap and simply rolling yourself in kitchen-grade cling wrap would be the pleasant tea-like smell. As Lapsys explains, you might feel better immediately after, but slimming body wraps are not going to do anything for your physique in the long term.

"You might feel and look better or different after a wrap but it would be transient," says Lapsys.