Tight Jeans Found a Cause of Back Pain

Tight jeans with heavily reinforced seams are fashionable but can cause low back pain, researchers reported Thursday.

Two teen-age girls who regularly wore tight jeans developed lower back pain that went away when they stopped wearing the denim pants and sat up straight, researchers from the pediatrics department at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland said in a report.

The location of the pain was found to be the end of the tailbone, which is unprotected by fat or muscle, said Dr. Edward Mortimer, professor of pediatrics.

When the girls sat slumped, the pressure from the back seam of the jeans and hard classroom chairs combined to cause discomfort, Mortimer wrote in the journal Pediatrics.