August 17, 2016 • 58 mins
Studies have found that breasts have a significant impact of if and how girls and women exercise. Cristen and Caroline work out how breast variety, bounce embarrassment and sports bra technology impact female fitness.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from housetop works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and today we're talking about boobs in motion, boobs,
sweating boobs, bouncing boobs, exercising, moops on the move, Boobs
(00:28):
on the move and on the move they are. Because
we're gonna get I don't want to. I'm not gonna
spoil it, but there is a factual tidbit in this
episode that involves the car and it's blowing my mind
and I can't wait to blow y'all's minds too, Because
boobs when you move, they move even faster. Breasts are incredible.
(00:50):
I'm just gonna go ahead and say they're incredible. But
they can also make exercising incredibly challenging, oh for sure.
And this episode was inspired by research that I just
stumbled across of how there are now two and only
two studies looking at how breasts and our breast size
(01:15):
influence women and girls likelihood to exercise. Yeah, well, I
it's funny that we had like boob research kids met
I think because just further proving that you and I
are somehow connected at the brain stem because around the
same time that you were stumbling across this research, I
was separately having a conversation with someone else about how
(01:37):
lady golfers frequently have to change their stance or have
a different stance than mail golfers because of their breaths
getting in the way of their swing. Yeah. There was
this golf commentator who was quoted in one of the
pieces I was reading from where deering an lp G
(01:59):
a event. He said on television, Yeah, women's boobs just
get in the way, just like straight up set it.
And they had entirely wrong. I know. The thing is
like cringe reading that, but then at the same time
it's like, well, I mean you do have a point.
And the thing is it is time we pay a
(02:21):
lot more attention to our breasts, whether we are exercising casually,
just for health and fitness, all the way up to
professional sports like um, a professional golfer. And by pay
attention to I don't mean, of course, just aggling breasts,
because that is one deterrent of people not wanting to exercise. Yeah,
(02:43):
that's already we've got that covered. Yeah, the oggling of boobs,
it's already. We're good. Yeah, we're good. We're good on
that end, but it's time for us to pay closer
attention to figuring out how to vault over exercises. Boo
barrier because there's a there's a breast barrier there. And
(03:04):
as a small chested woman, I think this is why
the research was so surprising to me. Not that I
couldn't imagine how that was a barrier, but it's just
something that I don't have to think about all that much.
I I jog, and I can wear a compression sports
bra and I'm good, Um, but not the case for
(03:25):
women who have more than my A cups. Yeah, boob
bounce is one of the more painful things that I
have felt. Um. And I don't think you have to
be like a double h to feel that way. I mean,
I think boobs of any size bouncing hurts. Um. It's uncomfortable. Um. Literally,
if I see a woman jogging down the side of
(03:46):
the road and there's a lot of boob bounceage, my
first thought is like, oh God, the pain. The pain.
I can like feel it. It's like telegraphed onto my body.
I can feel it. Yeah, And if I if I'm
not wearing a bra and I'm running around, which you
know what it happens sometimes people, Um, yeah, actually you're
(04:08):
just running in a circle in your apartment pretty much.
That's how I get my feminist rage out. I'd throw
my bra off and just running circles. Um. But yeah,
I mean my even even my very small breaths will
experience that kind of pain too. I mean, boom, boom,
bounce pain. I think is pretty universal. I mean, if
there's one thing we do not need as women and girls,
(04:29):
it is another barrier to exercise and too physical activity.
Because there's some pretty disheartening stats out there. For instance,
by the age of fourteen, girls are dropping out of
sports at twice the rate that boys are and a
lot of times the explanation for that, they go to
explanations are, oh, well, girls become a lot more self
(04:51):
conscious with puberty. Um, they are not as interested in
becoming like fit and potentially muscular, but they're more concerned
about like beauty appearance. And and that might be the case,
but looking at the study we're about too, I think
there's there's more boob to it than that. And outside
(05:12):
of organized sports, according to statistics from the Centers for
Disease Control, and prevention. Less than of high school girls
are getting the recommended amount of daily physical activity, and
even that is half of what boys are getting. So
like across the board, boys are exercising more. Yeah, and
(05:33):
this is not only bad for just general health and
establishing healthy, happy habits when you're a young person, but
it also stinks because exercise is good for our breast
health as well. It's not just making sure that you're
a healthy weight and that you're fighting anxiety and depression
with some good old physical activity, but your boobs could
benefit from some moving around as well. And that's according
(05:54):
to the Cleveland Clinic UM, women who get plenty of
exercise are twenty five percent less likely to develop breast cancer.
Because good solid exercise, getting your daily recommended exercise can
boost your immune function, it can ward off obesity, and
it can lower levels of both estrogen and insulin, and
(06:16):
not to mention, it strengthens our bones and our hearts,
which is very important for our holistic health as well,
since women suffer far more from osteoporosis and heart disease
is the number one killer of women. Right And so
while exercise can help your mental health, your obviously your
physical health. It can help improve body image when you
(06:38):
feel stronger and more empowered. Your body image and your
confidence can suffer if you feel like you can't exercise
well or enough because your boobs are bouncing too much.
And I mean that sounds silly, but like like we said,
boot bounce can be painful, and more than being painful,
it can also just draw unwanted attention, especially if you're
(06:59):
one of is younger girls who's already a little bit
self conscious. Well yeah, I mean, and and girls in
general are developing larger breasts earlier and at higher rates
than they used to be. So this is something I mean,
as soon as you become aware of you're developing body
and how our developing body, particularly are breasts are so
(07:22):
immediately sexualized that become that can become a source of shame.
And if we look though, just at the biomechanics of breasts,
it's incredible. This is what I mean when I say
that breasts are incredible. And Caroline, please share your car fact.
This is my favorite little tidbits. So you know, Kristen
(07:47):
did mention that boobs and their movement and how they
move has not been studied overly much yet. But one
more recent study found that nipple on a seat or
decup breast, when you as a person are moving, they
can accelerate up to forty five miles per hour in
(08:10):
one second, which, my friends, is faster than a Ferrari. Yeah,
that's my favorite boob related car fact or car related
boob fact. It's like a mashup of stuff mom never
told you, and our our family podcasts car stuff um
never before seen together. Um. In an hour of moderate jogging.
(08:31):
As Amanda has noted over in ESPN magazine a couple
of years ago, our breast will bounce several thousand times.
And if you have large breasts, even if you have
small breast in there, it's supported. Well. Obviously that can
be painful because when we think of breast bouncing, we
think of them just going up and down. In fact,
they move in a figure eight motion, and large breast
(08:57):
can oscillate up to eight inches. And this is why,
like this is an extreme example, but this is also
why its like, very large breast in motion can potentially
even break your clavical because they know that they moved
with that much force. That sounds terrible, but it makes
sense because before this podcast, I was talking to Holly
(09:18):
from History Stuff, and she was talking about the very
real divergence that happens when you are growing up and
developing breasts of whatever size between the girls who go
on to pursue ballet and the girls who for instance,
go on to pursue like hip hop dance or modern dance. Um.
And she then she of course made a joke because
(09:39):
she's also a runner, made a joke about as she
was developing her boobs popping up and hitting her in
the face. Well, and I'm I'm assuming that you know,
ballet is obviously associated with smaller breasts. That's probably why
I did ballet for quite a while into high school.
But then she also Holly also brought up an interesting
point which uh I had not thought about before researching
(10:01):
for this episode, that she was so thrilled when she
was in college and sports bras finally came out in
full force on the market, because I just think of
sports bras is like, sure, they've always existed, the way
of the bras have existed for a long time. No,
like having good support bra wise, and like knowing enough
(10:25):
about your boobs and about sports bras to support them correctly,
Like that's kind of a new thing. Oh, it's still developing.
Sports pra technology has not caught up to the biomechanics
of our boobs and their figure eight patterns. Um and
I realized as we were researching for this episode that
we should do a whole separate one on the history
(10:47):
of the sports bra because it begins with a couple
of ladies getting fed up and actually like trying to
jock straps together. Interesting. I hope they were clean, because
I mean, you know, jock straps are essentially like men's
sports bras, like testicular sports bras, right, the sports bro
(11:09):
So if we look though at this issue of developing
breasts and girls exercise and sports participation, the fact of
the matter is we need better broad occasion. And I
would also argue, and I'll get into this a little
bit more, I would also argue that girls in public
(11:32):
schools or in low income areas need more affordable, well
made sports bras if we want to close that competitive
sports gap, you know, with a drop off after they
turned fourteen at twice the rate of boys. Sports bras
are a big factor. They're so expensive. They're still expensive,
(11:52):
similar to you know, the whole tampon free tampon text initiative,
and how now in New York public schools, I believe
they're going to be provided for free, which is fantastic. Um.
And this is all sparked by a very recent study
and the only study of its kind, which came out
in February in the Journal of Adolescent Health. The studies
(12:15):
titled the Influence of the Breast on Sport and Exercise
Participation in school Girls in the UK and in terms
of pain up women and girls experience exercise related breast
discomfort no surprise, I am no stranger to that. But
(12:36):
when they were talking to girls about their breasts and
how their breasts influenced their exercise or sports participation, seventy
three percent of them cited at least one breast related concern,
and the number one was embarrassment over bounced. Oh yeah, okay,
(12:57):
are you ready for a sad Cara story? Because yeah,
also again, because this is something I mean. I had
zero boobs when I was like fourteen years old. Yeah,
so I was a little bit chubby when I was
growing up and as I was entering my pre pubescent
phase and I was sprouting the first hint of breastnesses. Um.
(13:22):
I was getting a little bounce and it was uncomfortable.
Suddenly pe was painful. It was painful to go to
the gym and do my my lap around the track
like I was supposed to. And so I I went
home and I asked my mom and I can't remember,
this wasn't like fourth grade, fifth grade, and I asked
to get a sports bra. And I mean, I was
(13:45):
kind of excited by the idea, but also kind of
the opposite of exciting, because it's like, oh yeah, yah bra,
but also like, oh crap, I'm growing up in a
bra um. And so you know, she was more than
willing to take me shopping. And I went and I
got a bunch of very basic white sports bras um
and I wore it to school because we had p
(14:08):
every day. And I remember so distinctly getting like stars
because you know, if you're wearing a white shirt, you
can see that you're wearing a white bra underneath a
white shirt. And I distinctly remember the popular girl walking
by me and being like, are you wearing a bra?
And I was just like yeah, And I mean she
(14:32):
couldn't say anything after that. She bra shamed you, she
bra shamed me all because I was just developing differently.
And I even remember so fast forward too, about seventh grade.
I'm in science class. My teacher is this amazing guys,
like so funny. He's everybody's favorite teacher. I think this
might have been eighth grade. And he starts like making this.
(14:59):
He starts telling this story where he is talking about
his own high school career or whatever in middle school
career and talking about this girl who developed early and
had to wear a bra, and he was making fun
of her. And I remember turning bright red because I
was one of the if not the earliest, to wear
a bra in my class, simply because I just didn't
(15:20):
want to have the bounce pain when I ran laps
in the gym. I am shaking my head at that teacher.
Why know, I'm I'm shaking my head at both of them,
because clearly there had not been enough education on that
popular girl's part to understand that people developed differently and
that if you have more tissue or fat on your
(15:40):
chest than someone else, the bounce is going to hurt.
And on the teacher's part, like, what are you even thinking?
You're talking to a co ed classroom full of girls
who are now presumably at this age all wearing bras
or most of them, So like, what what is this?
What is the making fun of in the shaming purpose? Yeah,
also just inappropriate on a bazillion levels. For a should
(16:01):
we be talking about that? And I wonder with this
study and the embarrassment that cited, whether it's more just
sort of an internalized thing of when your breasts are moving,
you just it makes your body feel really obvious. And
when you are fourteen years old, at least in my recollection,
(16:24):
the last thing you want to do is be super obvious.
So whether it's something more personal like that, or if
it's the experience of having their breasts being ogled by
boys and let's face it also men um because this
reminds me. Your school stories remind me of high school
when in ninth and tenth grade, our class would go
(16:48):
on a retreat at the beginning of the school year
and we would go swimming. And there was a girl
in my grade who was very petite and she had
very large breasts, and I remember when she went swimming,
she wore a T shirt and everyone was like, why
is she wearing a T shirt? And they're like, oh,
(17:08):
because she's got those big boobs. And then when she
finally like braved taking off her shirt because she was
so tired of people giving her a hard time for
wearing a shirt, the guys lost it, you know, and
and and even the girls were like, oh my god,
you see her boobs is so big because she's like
doing something to you on purpose. Yeah, yeah, I mean
(17:31):
there's so much. I mean, And this is what I
mean by the broad occasion like we have really, I mean,
we stigmatized girls breasts a lot, so it's no surprise
that that embarrassment factor is the number one. And it's
not just yeah, not just inflicted by you know, people
in public, you know, attention, unwanted attention from boys. But
(17:53):
also the number two reason for embarrassment that the girls
sided in the study was having to change in front
of other girls. And I remember this too when I
was taking ballet. Speaking of ballet boobs a few minutes ago. Um,
you know, we all changed together and you quickly had
to get like comfortable, um getting naked in front of girls.
(18:15):
And uh, for me, it wasn't too embarrassing because in
ballet you were like expected to be flat chested. But
if it hadn't been like these these girls who I
was also like very close friends with. There were maybe
like six of us. You know, it's a safe space
to have to get naked, but in the locker room,
(18:37):
oh no, I would I would have been embarrassed too.
You know, if you're already feeling awkward in your body
and maybe you are developing faster than other girls, no good.
So the final piece so of broad uccation is that
the number three concerned they cided was the girls said
that their boobs were simply too big to exercise, that
(18:58):
it wouldn't be healthy. And that's, you know, a common
fallacy that we think where it's like, yeah, I mean
if I run around, that's gonna be it hurts, Therefore
it must be bad for my breast. But in fact
the problem is that we don't have supportive enough and
accessible enough sports bras because a lot of them also
weren't wearing sports bras at all. Yeah, meanwhile, I was
(19:21):
wearing like the same type of sports bra. I don't
know when I first got a real quote unquote bra,
because I mean, dude, like those sports bras, like for
when you're like kind of pre booby, you're not totally booby.
Yet the breast buds, which I know that's the correct
anatomical term, but it squicks me out. It squaks me
out too. I don't like that either. Um. But in
(19:43):
this study too, they found that of girls between eleven
and eighteen said that their boobs did influence their sports participation.
And that was true for sixty of larger breasted girls
compared to of girls with smaller breasts. So obviously more
common for larger breastly girls too, but not uncommon for
(20:05):
girls with smaller breath exactly. That's what I was about
to say. I mean, this is like an issue across
the board. And like I said, not many were even
wearing a sports brat. Only ten percent were sports brought
every time they exercise. And I wonder, this is something
that didn't come up in anything that we read. And
I was like, well, kind of shaking my hands at
my computer, because hello, like bras are expensive. I mean
(20:29):
I grew up in a family without much money, and
I remember that, like I got my first like set
of bras and those were like the bras that I
was gonna have to use. And yeah, I had a
sports bra, but it was like a Kmart sports brat
and thank god I didn't have larger breast, because of
course it would not have been able to support me well.
And there's also the embarrassment factor to thank god I
had a mother who was like super ready at any
(20:51):
point to take me shopping for whatever I needed, because
I'm sure, I'm sure like her as a grand woman
was like, you don't need a sports bra, but she
was willing to be supportive as supportive as that sports
bra um. But I'm sure that there are people with other,
you know, different family situations where it would be horrifically
embarrassing to have to ask your parents or your guardian
(21:12):
or whoever to take your sports bras shop in single
dad um. And in the study again, for girls who
exercised the most, they worried the most about how sports
bras fit and also how their breasts looked while exercising.
So we are pretty much immediately like kind of scrutinizing
(21:35):
and feeling nervous about the appearance of our breasts almost
as as soon as we get them, and hammering home
again my broad juccation platform of those girls wanted to
just know more about breast in general. They hadn't been
taught that much. And I have a feeling that kind
of like the sex ed talk at home, you probably
(21:56):
don't get a lot much breast education at home because
it's one of those things where it's like, oh, we don't,
we don't need to, you know, fast forward your development
too much, or it's like you know, oh you're getting
them good, yeah, good, yeah, all right. Well, and there's
a lot that adult, grown up women don't know about
their own breasts. Have I ever been professionally fitted for
(22:18):
a bra? No? I haven't. I'm sure I'm wearing the
wrong size bra. I have side note. Okay, you know
how like sometimes on the podcast we'll talk about a
health issue and we're like, maybe get a second opinion.
Don't be afraid to get a second bra opinion as well.
So I took a friend's advice and went to a
particular department store. This is for regular bras, not sports bras.
(22:39):
That will remain nameless, and it will remain nameless because
it was a horrific experience. The women were nice enough,
I mean, they were fine, but they were essentially telling
me and and based on my experience as a person
with breasts who identifies as a woman and is alive. Um.
I've worn bras for a long time, and I know
what fits and feels good, and I know enough to
(23:01):
know that you shouldn't wear a bra that is so
tight that it feels like it's cutting off your blood flow. Um.
And these women at this department store were essentially telling
me that that's what I needed to do. I needed
to wear a bra that was so tight that it
was going to then stretch out and then it would fit.
And I was like, I that's not a thing, but
(23:21):
I am now naked in this dressing room with you,
so I can't tell you that you're full of it. Um.
So they basically said that I needed to wear a
bra that was significantly smaller than the size that I
was wearing comfortably on a normal basis, smaller cup size
or smaller, much smaller band sizes, and much bigger cup size.
(23:42):
And I was like, okay, well this is I'm just
going to this isn't right. I won't walk you through
my entire mental process, but I was like, this is
this is so wrong? Um. And then I went to
another store and was fitted by a nice, elderly woman
who essentially told me that you're exactly right. The size
that you're firing. But it's still good to go through
(24:04):
that process of getting sized and fitted by someone who
has been trained, knows what she's doing, and don't be
afraid to get a second bra opinion. Well, and even
just basics about our breast health and how our breasts work,
and concerns about how our breasts look, whether it's you know,
being shy, belt ariola size or random mole or hair,
(24:27):
you know, all of these things that we have just
sanitized from girls educations, um because you know, of the
girls in that study too wanted to know specifically about
you know, breasts in sports bras as it applies to
to exercise and women could also use some more support
(24:51):
as well. And again this is something that's been really understudy.
There's only there only you know a couple of studies
looking at this. Uh. One the most recent ones was
in two thousand twelve in the British Journal of Sports Medicine,
which studied London Marathon competitors. And you might think, huh, well,
that's a pretty uniform you know, sample population there, but
(25:13):
in fact that encompass a range of shapes and sizes,
including fifty six different bra sizes from double as to
double h is and band sizes from twenty to so
the methodology is sound, and they found that more than
a third of those women reported breast soreness. But the
(25:35):
correlation between breast soreness and exercise is not so clear cut,
because hello, you know what makes our breaststore our menstrual cycles,
and that is something I can attest to. Yeah, So,
like before I had an IU D, I never got
breast soreness. Ever, I really never had PMS before I
had an I U D. And uh, suddenly I'm you know,
(25:57):
like a thirty two year old woman breaking out and
crampy and also like wanting to murder other drivers on
the road. And my boobs hurt. And it's crazy because
my boobs get so big right before my period and
they hurt and I'm like, oh, it's coming because period
related breast soreness. The struggle is real. The struggle is real.
(26:18):
And I've had days when they're just like so sore
that Yeah, I'm like, Okay, it's gonna be a yoga day.
We are not going to go jogging. What I'm referring
to myself in the Royal we I don't know. Um, well, no, you,
You're encompassing all three of you. Oh yes, me and
uh Lucinda and Lucille. While I was trying to think of,
(26:42):
you know, some rad ladies maybe like me and Glorious
Steinem and Flow Kennedy. It's my my little triumvirate um.
And that London Marathon study though, found that in fact,
my breastoorness is real. Even a cups get sore of
a cup. Women in the study reported soreness and having
(27:04):
a baby can influence this because, as we talked about
in our last episode on the science of saggy breasts,
pregnancy structurally like changes our boobs. Yeah, hormones don't discriminate.
It doesn't matter what size you're boobiz. Your hormone is
probably gonna make it hurt. You know what, your singular hormone.
(27:25):
I don't know why. One hormone. But so the results
of all of this pain, this discomfort, the self uh consciousness, Well,
you've got a lot of women in this study who
ended up training less intensely or skipping training altogether. And
we're gonna get to this in just a little bit.
But do not be disheartened, because there is a surprisingly
(27:49):
effective remedy for a lot of that pain, and that's
called a well fitting sports bra. Yeah, but more on
that and just a little bit, because there was a
more recent study from April that, like the British study
which was actually I think inspired by this study UM
(28:11):
looked at the correlations between women's breast size and exercise
participation and it found that seventeen percent of women avoid
exercise for boob related reasons, specifically lack of a comfortable
support of sports bra. And here we go again. Bounce embarrassment, Yes,
excessive bounce. Yeah, well, I know because people are already
(28:34):
staring at boobs all the time, and if they are
then boobs in motion, people are going to be like,
even if it's not literally to argle you in a
sexual way, if it's just like, oh, look at those
boobs bouncing, you know, you get tired of drawing attention
to your boobs. And listen, not to get two t
M I about it, but we've already talked a lot
about our own breast. I'll go ahead and not another
(28:56):
fact about my boobs and exercise. Obviously, the excess some
bouncing thing not so much an issue for me, but
one reason why I am hesitant to go jogging, especially
on a busy thoroughfare, and just a sports bra without
a shorter tank top over. It is because of nipples.
(29:18):
The old if like if nibbles are visible like at all,
you know, the if the old headlights turn on, because
that just happens. Um, you will get looks. And I mean,
of course, it's just like a thing, you know. I'm
sure people's eyes are just kind of naturally drawn to it.
But I have felt so self conscious before jogging realizing,
(29:40):
you know, in just a sports bra, and then initially
being like, yes, I'm running in just a sports braun
embracing my body, no big deal. Oh god, my nibbles
are really on on parade. Um. Well, I mean that's
I The sports bra that I had, like my main
sports bra, uh, squeezes the life out of me. And
(30:00):
part of that is that it flattens now like flattens
my boobs to my chest so much, but it also
flattens in camouflagees the nips as well. Well. I'm gonna
have a couple of follow up questions for you about
that when we get to our sports bra uh section,
because the whole flattening thing, um is pertinent, pert like
(30:22):
like pert Yes, breast like breast pertin into your party
pert breasts. But in that a study on exercise and
women's breast size, one major factor that correlated to higher
exercise rates was not smaller breasts, but rather higher rates
of breast health knowledge, yes, be empowered educated, broad occation
(30:47):
of knowing about sports bra fits, knowing what should feel okay,
and knowing that if we experience pain or soreness, it
is not necessarily because exercise is bad for our boobs.
But one thing that didn't come up in either of
these studies we've talked about that came to mind as
I was reading this was what about boob sweat? Because
(31:10):
maybe there's an embarrassment factor around that. Although honestly, when
I sweat a lot during um, when I'm exercising, I'm
kind of proud of like all my all my sweat
a little bit um, But if you have larger breasts,
boob sweat can be also a source of discomfort. Well yeah,
because not only is there again the risk of being
augle because like you've got a sweaty chest, or possible
(31:32):
discomfort because it's slipping and sliding down there, but also
like for bigger chests, bigger breasts, you can potentially develop
like a skin condition if you don't dry off, if
you don't have a sports brawl or a shirt that
has wicking properties to get all of that moisture away
from your skin. Yeah, breathability is an important thing to
(31:53):
look for in sports bras because that under boob sweat,
which apparently some people call swoob, can lead to chafing,
possible rashes, and even yeast infections if that moisture hangs
around long enough. And I became aware of this a
couple of years ago when um, a breast antiperspirant came
(32:17):
out on the market and immediately sites like Jezebel jumped
on it. And we're like, oh, here we go again,
just pathologizing something else. We really need antiperspirant for our
boobs now, this is ridiculous. Um. Although I will say
the brand name bust dust is fantastic. Baby powder can
also work. And finally, some larger breasted feminists on the
(32:42):
internet said, hey, excuse um, I see what you mean there,
But for larger breasted women this is thing. Yeah, I mean,
better to wear boob deodorant or boob powder than having
to go to the dermatologist and getting an antifungal topical cream.
You know, I mean, thank god that exists, But wouldn't
(33:02):
you rather just wear boot powder than having to go
go to the dermatologist because you have a boob yeast infection? Yeah,
I mean, and all in that short sightedness to me,
yet again goes around to our lack of brod ducation.
I'm going to keep saying it should just trade market.
I think, so kind of like c literacy, you need
(33:23):
some broad juccation. But what happens when boobs go pro
We're going to talk about that when we come right
back from a quick break and now back to the show. So,
(33:44):
like you said at the top of the podcast, Caroline,
with your example of women's golfing, breasts can literally get
in the way of competitive sports. Well yeah, and I
mean if just look at methodology, if you talk about
the Amazon's, according to Amazon myth, they just totally lopped
(34:05):
off a whole boob so that they could be more
effective with their archery. And there are a lot of
professional or elite athletes who have undergone breast reductions in
an attempt to improve their athletic performance. Although we should
note that there is no study corroborating that that UM
will reliably improve your game or your time whatever. Are
(34:30):
we surprised? I mean there's been like all of like
three boob sports studies sports boobs sports sports boobs studies. Yeah. Yeah, well,
and and also I think there you know, we just
don't We just don't understand though, like how women's bodies
work from head to toe all that well, um, but
in competitive sports such as golfing obviously, archery, hurdler's gymnasts,
(34:54):
tennis players, anything where you have a swing, water polo players,
apparently like keeping your boobs in the water. How many
times have you jumped into a body of water, whether
it is a pool or lake or something and that
top just flies right off. I know that they're in
one pieces, but boots, the risk of them trying to
escape from the top, yes, yes, which happens. And even
(35:16):
Rhonda rousy m M, a fighter UM in the sports
bras you know that the fighters will wear, has had
to contend with potential nip slips because wasn't it her
first professional UFC fight that UM the her opponent was
like on her back trying to essentially break her neck
and so she was worried about like, well, okay, I've
(35:38):
got to survive, but also my sports bra is slipping
dangerously lower and lower and lower. So she's fighting this
woman with one hand and fighting with her sports bra
with the other basically, but if her if she had
experienced a sports bra malfunction during that fight, it certainly
would not have been the first boob to be out
(36:00):
at a sporting event. Yes, so Amanda has noted this
in a piece she wrote over at ESPN magazine, which
I was so thrilled to see when it came out
a couple of years ago, because I was like, yes,
sports boobs, Hello, now one's talking about that. She sight
of this incident in when then eighteen year old Ritrean
(36:21):
runner nebat hobbed to marry him had to run the
majority of a five k meter qualifying heat with her
boob out because she I don't know if she like
left her sports bra at home or what, but she
had to borrow one. No just camsole. She borrowed a singlet,
(36:41):
Oh my god, and didn't have a sports bra under it,
and so she started running and immediately and her boobs
started running away too. Yeah. Well, because as we've disclosed
in the first part of this episode, your boobs are
on the move. Major. Yeah, and and has noted in
the article that understandably this athlete like didn't leave her
(37:05):
apartment for a week. She was just mortified. Again. Thank
god Twitter didn't exist. Oh yeah, oh big time. But
you know you mentioned that there's no real study to
corroborate claims that smaller breasts or no breasts uh helps
your game. Um, but plenty of women have pursued this route.
(37:28):
In two thousand nine, romani and tennis star Simona Hollop
got a breast reduction to help improve her play, and
her play actually did improve. She was a thirty four
double D at the time before her reduction, But there
was a petition that a bunch of guys circulated like
asking her to not have the surgery. And there you go,
(37:49):
there's the oggling factor. Thanks for nothing, because boob bounce
embarrassment roots back to that kind of nonsense. Yeah, but
the next year you have Australian turler Janna Rawlinson, who
announced that she was going to get her breast implants
removed to try to improve her chances of making it
to the Olympics. She actually didn't make it because of
(38:10):
a foot injury, not because of boobs or no boobs.
And even though, like we said, there isn't any firm
data on this, plastic surgeons such as doctor ed Dominankis,
who was speaking to the Orange County Register, assume that
breast implants and larger breasts are a negative in sports
(38:33):
like golf, tennis, and track, although uh, the doctor said
except in boxing, they might help because they would quote
soften the blow, to which I was like, okay, this
man has never been punched in the boobs. We talked
about this in our last episode. We did, and some people,
as we can give m m A and Ronda Rousey,
(38:53):
some have suggested that chess strikes a k A. Boob
punches should be um band in women's UFC fighting. But
Rousey is like, what, no, no, just you just protect
your chest. Well, there was an entire Reddit thread where
somebody was trying to figure out how badly getting punched
(39:13):
in the boob does hurt, and it was so fascinating
to me to look at the responses because so many
women were like, oh, it's the worst. I will have
to lie down on the ground to recover, and other
women were like, no, it doesn't hurt at all. Um,
to me, a boob hit really hurts. A boob hit
when you are like on the verge of a period. Oh,
(39:37):
don't even I can't even, like, I can't even touch them.
There There are so many Yahoo answers type Google results
asking whether getting punched in the breast or the testicles
hurts more, to which I'm like, Internet finds something better
to do with your time. It doesn't matter. Yeah, I don't,
(39:58):
Yeah exactly, but a so back to boxing though, uh
and punching everybody in their boobs in the ring. Uh.
In two thousand nine, British amateur boxer Sarah Bluten was
not allowed to compete in the UK's Amateur Boxing Association
events because of her breast implants. Yeah. And their defense
(40:19):
was saying that it was because of risk to breast tissue.
But plastic surgeons that the Orange County Register and reporting
on this talked to disagreed, saying that our breasts take
more of a beating so to speak, and just day
to day life than her implants would. And Blueten said
their gel implants and so it's not like they could
(40:42):
possibly rupture so um, that was. I mean, that's just
something you would rarely see of an athlete intentionally enlarging
her breasts. Um. And I would also imagine too that
this is a factor for beach volleyball where you know,
I mean, the Olympics is happening as we are recording
this podcast, and um, you know, a lot of uniforms
(41:04):
are essentially like sports bras and briefs, and that is
one of the reasons why it's a really popular sport
for a male audience. Oh have you seen the meme
circulating about beach volleyball. It's showing a woman, uh, and
she's got a hitge job and she's completely covered. She's
on one side of the volleyball net, and then there's
(41:26):
I don't know she's American or Australian on the other
side in her what is basically bikini but sports bra
and briefs. And they were like, now tell us that
one country isn't more empowered than the other, meaning that like,
look at this white woman in her bikini, she's clearly
so much more free to live life the way she
(41:46):
wants to. Oh, I thought it was the reverse, where no,
it was the white guy was like see America is
more free. And basically the entire Internet jumped on this guy,
like are you serious? Yeah, because what I saw was
women are wearing he jobs for personal choice, whereas that
uniform is required, So which is more free? Also, again,
(42:09):
Internet finds something better to do with your time for
for serious such as learning about sports broad technology more productive. Um,
here's the thing we need, and I mean this seriously.
We need better sports broad technology. It is sorely emphasis
on sore lee needed. And this was something that Nicola Brown,
(42:33):
who was the lead author of that London marathon study,
was saying to the New York Times. I mean she
was saying like, this is just like a matter of
basic wellness for women. There are not adequate sports bras
that are affordable. I mean, you can get a really
high tech, super duper sports brat, but it's gonna cost
you upwards of sixty eight dollars yeah, if not more.
(42:56):
I mean there was a great was it on buzzfie
that they sent differently shaped women to try on the
same sports bras to see how they all worked with
different bodies. Um, and I think two of them, two
of the women chose the same bra, but then the
other two chose different ones because just because this one
bra is supposed to be so great doesn't mean it's
(43:17):
going to work for your body type. But often the
ones that are more supportive do tend to be more
outrageously expensive. Yeah, for all of them, the worth performing
was the cheapest Haynds sports bra, which was a bomber,
you know, because a lot of times my sports bras
shopping involves just like walking into target, grabbing what I
(43:38):
see and then um, buying some housewears that I don't need. Well,
of course that is my struggle as well in life. Um.
But the thing though about sports process, You're supposed to
replace them so often like a toothbrush, and so I don't.
I don't because they're so expensive. Yeah, I didn't realize
(43:58):
that I'm basically need to get rid of all but
two of my sports bras. But the thing is, though
sports broughts make a massive difference in terms of that
breast soreness issue. This is the fact that I was
teasing to earlier where Nicola Brown that researchers said that
their right fitting sports bra can reduce breast discomfort regardless
(44:20):
of your breast size and around of women who experience it.
I mean, that's it's a pretty powerful sports bra right there,
But it's just a matter of getting the right fit.
I would argue that a right fitting sports bra is
even more important than the right fitting bra bra, although
I am more likely to cry trying on sports bras
(44:43):
than regular bras because if you want a very supportive
sports bra, it's probably going to be very restrictive, so
trying to get in and out of them. Do you
know how hard it is to like try to squeeze
into a sports bra only to find out that it's
either too big or too small, and then trying to
pull it off, and you like just look at your
shoulder and then you're crying at Nike and you realize
your blood sugars crashed. I mean, that's why you get
(45:05):
the ones with the back clasps. Yeah, that'd be helpful. Yeah,
those do exist, but again those are going to be
your price er bras um and in the same way
as we talked about with the science of breast sag
in our last podcast, and the fact of the matter is,
like we're just late to the game on all of this.
(45:27):
We didn't start studying breast biomechanics until the nineteen nineties, Um,
probably because you finally had more women um in the
field being like, hey, here is something that directly applies
to my life, um, and we should study. But also,
breasts are just really hard to study like this because
they're so varied and it's hard to replicate the a
(45:52):
representative breast population in motion, you know what I mean,
Because it's like you would how how do you forward that? Well? Right?
Not obviously not all breasts are the same size and shape.
But obviously not everybody is literally only running on a treadmill.
You know. There's like, obviously so many different types of
activity even just walking around day to day, um, that
(46:13):
you would need a different type of sports brawl for.
But the big thing that I learned in terms of
sports broad technology is that originally they were just all
about compression, smush them down, keep them in, and those
are the basic like uni boob style sports bras are
probably the most familiar with. But now companies like a
Brooks or a Nike are looking at how to isolate
(46:39):
specific movement areas. I thought you were going to say,
how to isolate specific boobs, specific boom boobment areas because
of that figure eight motion, you know, and man, I
want to be like, I want to go to that lab.
I want to go to that sports brawl lab so
bad if anyone listening can hook me up with some
(46:59):
sports bra research. But that just kind of thinking about
booba art, Like what if you paint your nipples and
then run in front of a canvas? Like would you
get some cool figure eights going? There's only one way
to find out, I know, talk about the best like
pinterest craft. I'm sure it's been done, but in the
meantime until our perfect, magical, affordable sports bra that I
(47:24):
argue should be like government subsidized for low income people
with breasts, whatever your gender identity is. Um. There are
some tips for things that you can do to alleviate
some of that pain. Specifically, if you have larger breasts,
look for encapsulation style sports bras rather than the uniboop
(47:45):
style because those encapsulation style sports bras were the ones
that have separate cups. And right now in the studio,
I am making a cup gesture at Carolina. We're like
the Lady Gaga monster hands. Honestly, it feels a little
aggressive because I'm doing it at you. But those encapsulation
(48:06):
styles are are way more effective at controlling movement, and
that was something that was corroborated in that BuzzFeed experiment
trying to find the perfect bra, where um, the two
women with the largest brass were like, oh my god,
I had no idea. As soon as they put on
an encapsulation style bra, it was a whole new world.
And also, the focus doesn't need to be so much
(48:28):
on whether you have underwire or whether you have adjustable
straps on your sports bra because of your bra, support
actually comes from the band around your ribs, which I
can adjust to with my sports bra. That made me
cry in the Nike dressing room. But underwire and adjustable
straps those like clippy things. If you have a larger frame,
(48:52):
those are going to dig into your skin, so avoid
that well. Especially yeah, especially if you're doing some type
of uh, lengthy exercise, like if you're gonna go running
for hours, um, that can eventually really make you hate life.
Also just running for hours hour like I don't know,
maybe you're doing an iron Man, an iron woman, an
iron ironman, Ironman. Again, the back clasps can make life
(49:17):
a lot easier, so confront class. Oh yes, the front class.
Although but then that would make it harder if you
do have the what did you call it, encapsulated style,
the because you need if you've got that style, you
need the front and center of the broad to be
resting on your breastphone um and the band to be
sitting comfortably. So the front class might interfere with that.
(49:40):
Um just all the more important to maybe talk to
somebody who knows who has a better broad ducation. Also,
look for breathability. That's a big factor for reducing potential chafe.
And those super strappy Lululemon bras that are really cute
my not work the best support wise. Um yeah, like
(50:03):
maybe maybe if you're gonna, like go do yoga or
some low impact thing where you just want to wear
a sports bra but you don't care about bouncing or
support all that much. Maybe, but yeah, I mean the
two two of the girls in the BuzzFeed piece chose
the Lula Lemon bra um. One of them was smaller chested,
but the other girl who chose them, I think was
a sea cup. So I mean, Lilua Lemon bras will
(50:26):
cost you a fortune, but I mean they are very
well made. But again, those the multi strappie. Multiple straps
don't equal multiple support because again it's all about that
waste band or the chest band. Excuse me, maybe you've
got a waste band on your bra. I don't know. Yeah,
how high your your girdle bra? And again, you know
(50:49):
you're probably gonna have to to replace the more often
the way that you would your tennis shoes. You know,
if you're if you're out there running every single day,
for instance, you're going to have to replace your tennis
shoes or you're running shoes more often than someone like
me who doesn't run, um, but who used to. All right,
step judging. Um, it's the same with your sports bras
there with all of that supporting and the stretching and
(51:12):
everything that's happening, and washing them regularly. I hope they're
eventually going to get warned down they are And I
think the biggest thing that I would advocate and also listeners,
I would love some tips on how to better do this.
But we need to do such a better and more
vigilant job of just normalizing breast development for girls because obviously,
(51:36):
like we need better sports bas yes, but you know
the fact that for girls and women alike, that embarrassment
factor plays such a prominent role in determining whether we
do or don't exercise for healthsake. This is not about
staying then, this is about being healthy. What did Sissy
SpaceX mother call them and carry dirty pillows? We need
(51:58):
to get away from the mentality that what is on
your chest as you're developing through puberty are dirty and
somehow embarrassing and shameful because it's just part of your body.
So the more that we can understand about our anatomy
and our development, what's healthy, what's unhealthy, the better for
all of us. And hopefully the fewer um popular girls
(52:18):
who will approach girls like me and for some reason
shame them about needing to wear a bra. Very bizarre
to me, Braham, because that was something I thought that
would be like a badge of pride, like who got
their period first. I don't know. I don't know. We
can't all live in a Judy Bloom book. It's true,
it's true. And when it comes to raducation, boys need
it too, in the sense of raising boys to treat
(52:41):
and look at girls as humans rather than sex objects.
So and and for them to to just understand like
basic female development you know, um destigmatize all of this stuff.
It's healthy for every body. Yeah. So with that, listeners,
(53:02):
we want to hear all of your thoughts. I know
we have a lot of people who exercise, whether with
organized sports or casually work out in our audience. I
know a lot of people are probably listening to this
podcast while they are jogging or at the gym, and
I am so curious to know whether this rings true
for you and any tips that you can offer, any
(53:24):
sports bras that you can recommend, send it all our way.
Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
email address. You can also tweet us at mom Stuff
podcast or messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple
of messages to share with you right now. So I
(53:45):
have a letter here from Eleanor about our two parter
talking to Terry O'Neill, the president of the National Organization
for Women. Eleanor writes, OMG, your latest podcast interviewing Terry
O'Neil had me crying to years of joy. I loved
hearing her talk about the support of black women on
Twitter and lgbt Q I a people. It made me
(54:08):
so proud of all of our trailblazers and philled me
with feminist pride. I've only thought of NOW as a
pretty chill organization, but it had some problematic history. But
I'm so glad you guys taught me about their intersectionality. Plus,
I really enjoyed the mentions about how NOW wanted women
to stay angry. It inspired me to find my anger
and go march and pick it and protest in the streets.
(54:32):
Let's get the e r A passed, y'all. Let's go
angry feminists. Thanks for your fantastic podcast, Eleanor, And she says, ps,
screw Judge Aaron Pursky. Yeah, and and Judge Persky is
the one who made the decision in both Stanford rape
case to essentially about a rapist off. I have just
(54:54):
the most touching letter from Catherine, who writes when I
turned twenty, I dropped out of college. I've been major
hopping for two and a half years and realized I
had to decide what to do with my life in
order to justify taking out more student loans. I spent
the next two years working a dead end job in
a manufacturing plant, typically spending three days a week on
(55:14):
the production floor and two days a week doing custodial work.
I want to go on record as saying that factory
workers are some of the hardest working and kindest people
in the world, and our entire society would crumble without them.
Here here, However, I hated my job. I actually looked
forward to my cleaning days because scrubbing toilets meant I
was allowed to listen to my iPod. So fast forward
(55:37):
to Catherine's discovery of stuff Mom never told you, and
she says, one day I heard the first Sminty episode
about librarians, and the one she's referencing folks was I
think from two thousand nine or ten years ago, she says.
I ended up spending the last hour and a half
of the day hidden in the cleaning supply closet, perched
(55:59):
on an upturn in five gallon bucket, googling how to
become a librarian on my phone. I achieved Step one
to a happy life, figure out what you want. It
was time for step two, figure out what you have
to do to get it. I discovered that in order
to become a librarian and run my own library someday,
I needed to go to grad school, which meant going
back and getting my bachelors, which was somewhat intimidating. Within
(56:22):
a few weeks, I had applied to two schools, one
that offered a b a. In Women's and Gender studies
and a community college as a safety school to boost
my g p A. My essay and letters of recommendation
must have been convincing because I was accepted and I
majored in women in Gender Studies, and for a school
in a state that's around white, we had an amazingly
intersectional program. More than half of the WSG professors I
(56:46):
had a woman of color, three of my favorite professors
or immigrants, and I had at least as many queer
professors of straight. Instead of listening to Sminty while scrubbing toilets,
I was listening during my commute to school, and Spinty
episode topics and fun facts made it to my papers
and classroom discussions on a regular basis. This past May,
I graduated as a member of our WSG honor society,
(57:08):
Iota Iota Iota, and finished my undergrad with a three
point four g p A. I'm the first of my
immediate family to finish college, and a couple of months
I'm heading to the university of Denver, my first choice
grad school, where I will be getting my master's in
Library and Information Sciences. I'm currently on the longest step
to a happy life, Step three, do the work. Even
(57:31):
though the original Librarian episode was before Caroline's time, I
thought it was important that I share my story with
you wonderful ladies. One episode of this podcast sparked an
epiphany that completely altered the trajectory of my life. I
highly doubt I'm the only one out there who has
had this type of experience on behalf of all of
us who have had their lives changed by this podcast.
I want to say thank you so freaking much, even
(57:53):
though we've never met. I love you both to the
moon and back. Well Cat, First of all, congratulation, Second
of all, you are a badass. And third, thank you
for one of the best letters we have ever received.
And um, I don't want to put words in your mouth, Caroline,
(58:14):
but I can say for myself that y'all have changed
my life as much as perhaps we have changed yours.
So thank you so much. And if you have letters
to make us cry as well, Mom Stuff at how
stuff works dot Com is our email address and for
links to all of our social media as well as
all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts with our sources
(58:36):
so you can learn so much more about boobs. Head
on over to Stuff Mom Never told You dot com
for moral this, and thousands of other topics. Is It
How stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from housetop works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and today we're talking about boobs in motion, boobs,
sweating boobs, bouncing boobs, exercising, moops on the move, Boobs
(00:28):
on the move and on the move they are. Because
we're gonna get I don't want to. I'm not gonna
spoil it, but there is a factual tidbit in this
episode that involves the car and it's blowing my mind
and I can't wait to blow y'all's minds too, Because
boobs when you move, they move even faster. Breasts are incredible.
(00:50):
I'm just gonna go ahead and say they're incredible. But
they can also make exercising incredibly challenging, oh for sure.
And this episode was inspired by research that I just
stumbled across of how there are now two and only
two studies looking at how breasts and our breast size
(01:15):
influence women and girls likelihood to exercise. Yeah, well, I
it's funny that we had like boob research kids met
I think because just further proving that you and I
are somehow connected at the brain stem because around the
same time that you were stumbling across this research, I
was separately having a conversation with someone else about how
(01:37):
lady golfers frequently have to change their stance or have
a different stance than mail golfers because of their breaths
getting in the way of their swing. Yeah. There was
this golf commentator who was quoted in one of the
pieces I was reading from where deering an lp G
(01:59):
a event. He said on television, Yeah, women's boobs just
get in the way, just like straight up set it.
And they had entirely wrong. I know. The thing is
like cringe reading that, but then at the same time
it's like, well, I mean you do have a point.
And the thing is it is time we pay a
(02:21):
lot more attention to our breasts, whether we are exercising casually,
just for health and fitness, all the way up to
professional sports like um, a professional golfer. And by pay
attention to I don't mean, of course, just aggling breasts,
because that is one deterrent of people not wanting to exercise. Yeah,
(02:43):
that's already we've got that covered. Yeah, the oggling of boobs,
it's already. We're good. Yeah, we're good. We're good on
that end, but it's time for us to pay closer
attention to figuring out how to vault over exercises. Boo
barrier because there's a there's a breast barrier there. And
(03:04):
as a small chested woman, I think this is why
the research was so surprising to me. Not that I
couldn't imagine how that was a barrier, but it's just
something that I don't have to think about all that much.
I I jog, and I can wear a compression sports
bra and I'm good, Um, but not the case for
(03:25):
women who have more than my A cups. Yeah, boob
bounce is one of the more painful things that I
have felt. Um. And I don't think you have to
be like a double h to feel that way. I mean,
I think boobs of any size bouncing hurts. Um. It's uncomfortable. Um. Literally,
if I see a woman jogging down the side of
(03:46):
the road and there's a lot of boob bounceage, my
first thought is like, oh God, the pain. The pain.
I can like feel it. It's like telegraphed onto my body.
I can feel it. Yeah, And if I if I'm
not wearing a bra and I'm running around, which you
know what it happens sometimes people, Um, yeah, actually you're
(04:08):
just running in a circle in your apartment pretty much.
That's how I get my feminist rage out. I'd throw
my bra off and just running circles. Um. But yeah,
I mean my even even my very small breaths will
experience that kind of pain too. I mean, boom, boom,
bounce pain. I think is pretty universal. I mean, if
there's one thing we do not need as women and girls,
(04:29):
it is another barrier to exercise and too physical activity.
Because there's some pretty disheartening stats out there. For instance,
by the age of fourteen, girls are dropping out of
sports at twice the rate that boys are and a
lot of times the explanation for that, they go to
explanations are, oh, well, girls become a lot more self
(04:51):
conscious with puberty. Um, they are not as interested in
becoming like fit and potentially muscular, but they're more concerned
about like beauty appearance. And and that might be the case,
but looking at the study we're about too, I think
there's there's more boob to it than that. And outside
(05:12):
of organized sports, according to statistics from the Centers for
Disease Control, and prevention. Less than of high school girls
are getting the recommended amount of daily physical activity, and
even that is half of what boys are getting. So
like across the board, boys are exercising more. Yeah, and
(05:33):
this is not only bad for just general health and
establishing healthy, happy habits when you're a young person, but
it also stinks because exercise is good for our breast
health as well. It's not just making sure that you're
a healthy weight and that you're fighting anxiety and depression
with some good old physical activity, but your boobs could
benefit from some moving around as well. And that's according
(05:54):
to the Cleveland Clinic UM, women who get plenty of
exercise are twenty five percent less likely to develop breast cancer.
Because good solid exercise, getting your daily recommended exercise can
boost your immune function, it can ward off obesity, and
it can lower levels of both estrogen and insulin, and
(06:16):
not to mention, it strengthens our bones and our hearts,
which is very important for our holistic health as well,
since women suffer far more from osteoporosis and heart disease
is the number one killer of women. Right And so
while exercise can help your mental health, your obviously your
physical health. It can help improve body image when you
(06:38):
feel stronger and more empowered. Your body image and your
confidence can suffer if you feel like you can't exercise
well or enough because your boobs are bouncing too much.
And I mean that sounds silly, but like like we said,
boot bounce can be painful, and more than being painful,
it can also just draw unwanted attention, especially if you're
(06:59):
one of is younger girls who's already a little bit
self conscious. Well yeah, I mean, and and girls in
general are developing larger breasts earlier and at higher rates
than they used to be. So this is something I mean,
as soon as you become aware of you're developing body
and how our developing body, particularly are breasts are so
(07:22):
immediately sexualized that become that can become a source of shame.
And if we look though, just at the biomechanics of breasts,
it's incredible. This is what I mean when I say
that breasts are incredible. And Caroline, please share your car fact.
This is my favorite little tidbits. So you know, Kristen
(07:47):
did mention that boobs and their movement and how they
move has not been studied overly much yet. But one
more recent study found that nipple on a seat or
decup breast, when you as a person are moving, they
can accelerate up to forty five miles per hour in
(08:10):
one second, which, my friends, is faster than a Ferrari. Yeah,
that's my favorite boob related car fact or car related
boob fact. It's like a mashup of stuff mom never
told you, and our our family podcasts car stuff um
never before seen together. Um. In an hour of moderate jogging.
(08:31):
As Amanda has noted over in ESPN magazine a couple
of years ago, our breast will bounce several thousand times.
And if you have large breasts, even if you have
small breast in there, it's supported. Well. Obviously that can
be painful because when we think of breast bouncing, we
think of them just going up and down. In fact,
they move in a figure eight motion, and large breast
(08:57):
can oscillate up to eight inches. And this is why,
like this is an extreme example, but this is also
why its like, very large breast in motion can potentially
even break your clavical because they know that they moved
with that much force. That sounds terrible, but it makes
sense because before this podcast, I was talking to Holly
(09:18):
from History Stuff, and she was talking about the very
real divergence that happens when you are growing up and
developing breasts of whatever size between the girls who go
on to pursue ballet and the girls who for instance,
go on to pursue like hip hop dance or modern dance. Um.
And she then she of course made a joke because
(09:39):
she's also a runner, made a joke about as she
was developing her boobs popping up and hitting her in
the face. Well, and I'm I'm assuming that you know,
ballet is obviously associated with smaller breasts. That's probably why
I did ballet for quite a while into high school.
But then she also Holly also brought up an interesting
point which uh I had not thought about before researching
(10:01):
for this episode, that she was so thrilled when she
was in college and sports bras finally came out in
full force on the market, because I just think of
sports bras is like, sure, they've always existed, the way
of the bras have existed for a long time. No,
like having good support bra wise, and like knowing enough
(10:25):
about your boobs and about sports bras to support them correctly,
Like that's kind of a new thing. Oh, it's still developing.
Sports pra technology has not caught up to the biomechanics
of our boobs and their figure eight patterns. Um and
I realized as we were researching for this episode that
we should do a whole separate one on the history
(10:47):
of the sports bra because it begins with a couple
of ladies getting fed up and actually like trying to
jock straps together. Interesting. I hope they were clean, because
I mean, you know, jock straps are essentially like men's
sports bras, like testicular sports bras, right, the sports bro
(11:09):
So if we look though at this issue of developing
breasts and girls exercise and sports participation, the fact of
the matter is we need better broad occasion. And I
would also argue, and I'll get into this a little
bit more, I would also argue that girls in public
(11:32):
schools or in low income areas need more affordable, well
made sports bras if we want to close that competitive
sports gap, you know, with a drop off after they
turned fourteen at twice the rate of boys. Sports bras
are a big factor. They're so expensive. They're still expensive,
(11:52):
similar to you know, the whole tampon free tampon text initiative,
and how now in New York public schools, I believe
they're going to be provided for free, which is fantastic. Um.
And this is all sparked by a very recent study
and the only study of its kind, which came out
in February in the Journal of Adolescent Health. The studies
(12:15):
titled the Influence of the Breast on Sport and Exercise
Participation in school Girls in the UK and in terms
of pain up women and girls experience exercise related breast
discomfort no surprise, I am no stranger to that. But
(12:36):
when they were talking to girls about their breasts and
how their breasts influenced their exercise or sports participation, seventy
three percent of them cited at least one breast related concern,
and the number one was embarrassment over bounced. Oh yeah, okay,
(12:57):
are you ready for a sad Cara story? Because yeah,
also again, because this is something I mean. I had
zero boobs when I was like fourteen years old. Yeah,
so I was a little bit chubby when I was
growing up and as I was entering my pre pubescent
phase and I was sprouting the first hint of breastnesses. Um.
(13:22):
I was getting a little bounce and it was uncomfortable.
Suddenly pe was painful. It was painful to go to
the gym and do my my lap around the track
like I was supposed to. And so I I went
home and I asked my mom and I can't remember,
this wasn't like fourth grade, fifth grade, and I asked
to get a sports bra. And I mean, I was
(13:45):
kind of excited by the idea, but also kind of
the opposite of exciting, because it's like, oh yeah, yah bra,
but also like, oh crap, I'm growing up in a
bra um. And so you know, she was more than
willing to take me shopping. And I went and I
got a bunch of very basic white sports bras um
and I wore it to school because we had p
(14:08):
every day. And I remember so distinctly getting like stars
because you know, if you're wearing a white shirt, you
can see that you're wearing a white bra underneath a
white shirt. And I distinctly remember the popular girl walking
by me and being like, are you wearing a bra?
And I was just like yeah, And I mean she
(14:32):
couldn't say anything after that. She bra shamed you, she
bra shamed me all because I was just developing differently.
And I even remember so fast forward too, about seventh grade.
I'm in science class. My teacher is this amazing guys,
like so funny. He's everybody's favorite teacher. I think this
might have been eighth grade. And he starts like making this.
(14:59):
He starts telling this story where he is talking about
his own high school career or whatever in middle school
career and talking about this girl who developed early and
had to wear a bra, and he was making fun
of her. And I remember turning bright red because I
was one of the if not the earliest, to wear
a bra in my class, simply because I just didn't
(15:20):
want to have the bounce pain when I ran laps
in the gym. I am shaking my head at that teacher.
Why know, I'm I'm shaking my head at both of them,
because clearly there had not been enough education on that
popular girl's part to understand that people developed differently and
that if you have more tissue or fat on your
(15:40):
chest than someone else, the bounce is going to hurt.
And on the teacher's part, like, what are you even thinking?
You're talking to a co ed classroom full of girls
who are now presumably at this age all wearing bras
or most of them, So like, what what is this?
What is the making fun of in the shaming purpose? Yeah,
also just inappropriate on a bazillion levels. For a should
(16:01):
we be talking about that? And I wonder with this
study and the embarrassment that cited, whether it's more just
sort of an internalized thing of when your breasts are moving,
you just it makes your body feel really obvious. And
when you are fourteen years old, at least in my recollection,
(16:24):
the last thing you want to do is be super obvious.
So whether it's something more personal like that, or if
it's the experience of having their breasts being ogled by
boys and let's face it also men um because this
reminds me. Your school stories remind me of high school
when in ninth and tenth grade, our class would go
(16:48):
on a retreat at the beginning of the school year
and we would go swimming. And there was a girl
in my grade who was very petite and she had
very large breasts, and I remember when she went swimming,
she wore a T shirt and everyone was like, why
is she wearing a T shirt? And they're like, oh,
(17:08):
because she's got those big boobs. And then when she
finally like braved taking off her shirt because she was
so tired of people giving her a hard time for
wearing a shirt, the guys lost it, you know, and
and and even the girls were like, oh my god,
you see her boobs is so big because she's like
doing something to you on purpose. Yeah, yeah, I mean
(17:31):
there's so much. I mean, And this is what I
mean by the broad occasion like we have really, I mean,
we stigmatized girls breasts a lot, so it's no surprise
that that embarrassment factor is the number one. And it's
not just yeah, not just inflicted by you know, people
in public, you know, attention, unwanted attention from boys. But
(17:53):
also the number two reason for embarrassment that the girls
sided in the study was having to change in front
of other girls. And I remember this too when I
was taking ballet. Speaking of ballet boobs a few minutes ago. Um,
you know, we all changed together and you quickly had
to get like comfortable, um getting naked in front of girls.
(18:15):
And uh, for me, it wasn't too embarrassing because in
ballet you were like expected to be flat chested. But
if it hadn't been like these these girls who I
was also like very close friends with. There were maybe
like six of us. You know, it's a safe space
to have to get naked, but in the locker room,
(18:37):
oh no, I would I would have been embarrassed too.
You know, if you're already feeling awkward in your body
and maybe you are developing faster than other girls, no good.
So the final piece so of broad uccation is that
the number three concerned they cided was the girls said
that their boobs were simply too big to exercise, that
(18:58):
it wouldn't be healthy. And that's, you know, a common
fallacy that we think where it's like, yeah, I mean
if I run around, that's gonna be it hurts, Therefore
it must be bad for my breast. But in fact
the problem is that we don't have supportive enough and
accessible enough sports bras because a lot of them also
weren't wearing sports bras at all. Yeah, meanwhile, I was
(19:21):
wearing like the same type of sports bra. I don't
know when I first got a real quote unquote bra,
because I mean, dude, like those sports bras, like for
when you're like kind of pre booby, you're not totally booby.
Yet the breast buds, which I know that's the correct
anatomical term, but it squicks me out. It squaks me
out too. I don't like that either. Um. But in
(19:43):
this study too, they found that of girls between eleven
and eighteen said that their boobs did influence their sports participation.
And that was true for sixty of larger breasted girls
compared to of girls with smaller breasts. So obviously more
common for larger breastly girls too, but not uncommon for
(20:05):
girls with smaller breath exactly. That's what I was about
to say. I mean, this is like an issue across
the board. And like I said, not many were even
wearing a sports brat. Only ten percent were sports brought
every time they exercise. And I wonder, this is something
that didn't come up in anything that we read. And
I was like, well, kind of shaking my hands at
my computer, because hello, like bras are expensive. I mean
(20:29):
I grew up in a family without much money, and
I remember that, like I got my first like set
of bras and those were like the bras that I
was gonna have to use. And yeah, I had a
sports bra, but it was like a Kmart sports brat
and thank god I didn't have larger breast, because of
course it would not have been able to support me well.
And there's also the embarrassment factor to thank god I
had a mother who was like super ready at any
(20:51):
point to take me shopping for whatever I needed, because
I'm sure, I'm sure like her as a grand woman
was like, you don't need a sports bra, but she
was willing to be supportive as supportive as that sports
bra um. But I'm sure that there are people with other,
you know, different family situations where it would be horrifically
embarrassing to have to ask your parents or your guardian
(21:12):
or whoever to take your sports bras shop in single
dad um. And in the study again, for girls who
exercised the most, they worried the most about how sports
bras fit and also how their breasts looked while exercising.
So we are pretty much immediately like kind of scrutinizing
(21:35):
and feeling nervous about the appearance of our breasts almost
as as soon as we get them, and hammering home
again my broad juccation platform of those girls wanted to
just know more about breast in general. They hadn't been
taught that much. And I have a feeling that kind
of like the sex ed talk at home, you probably
(21:56):
don't get a lot much breast education at home because
it's one of those things where it's like, oh, we don't,
we don't need to, you know, fast forward your development
too much, or it's like you know, oh you're getting
them good, yeah, good, yeah, all right. Well, and there's
a lot that adult, grown up women don't know about
their own breasts. Have I ever been professionally fitted for
(22:18):
a bra? No? I haven't. I'm sure I'm wearing the
wrong size bra. I have side note. Okay, you know
how like sometimes on the podcast we'll talk about a
health issue and we're like, maybe get a second opinion.
Don't be afraid to get a second bra opinion as well.
So I took a friend's advice and went to a
particular department store. This is for regular bras, not sports bras.
(22:39):
That will remain nameless, and it will remain nameless because
it was a horrific experience. The women were nice enough,
I mean, they were fine, but they were essentially telling
me and and based on my experience as a person
with breasts who identifies as a woman and is alive. Um.
I've worn bras for a long time, and I know
what fits and feels good, and I know enough to
(23:01):
know that you shouldn't wear a bra that is so
tight that it feels like it's cutting off your blood flow. Um.
And these women at this department store were essentially telling
me that that's what I needed to do. I needed
to wear a bra that was so tight that it
was going to then stretch out and then it would fit.
And I was like, I that's not a thing, but
(23:21):
I am now naked in this dressing room with you,
so I can't tell you that you're full of it. Um.
So they basically said that I needed to wear a
bra that was significantly smaller than the size that I
was wearing comfortably on a normal basis, smaller cup size
or smaller, much smaller band sizes, and much bigger cup size.
(23:42):
And I was like, okay, well this is I'm just
going to this isn't right. I won't walk you through
my entire mental process, but I was like, this is
this is so wrong? Um. And then I went to
another store and was fitted by a nice, elderly woman
who essentially told me that you're exactly right. The size
that you're firing. But it's still good to go through
(24:04):
that process of getting sized and fitted by someone who
has been trained, knows what she's doing, and don't be
afraid to get a second bra opinion. Well, and even
just basics about our breast health and how our breasts work,
and concerns about how our breasts look, whether it's you know,
being shy, belt ariola size or random mole or hair,
(24:27):
you know, all of these things that we have just
sanitized from girls educations, um because you know, of the
girls in that study too wanted to know specifically about
you know, breasts in sports bras as it applies to
to exercise and women could also use some more support
(24:51):
as well. And again this is something that's been really understudy.
There's only there only you know a couple of studies
looking at this. Uh. One the most recent ones was
in two thousand twelve in the British Journal of Sports Medicine,
which studied London Marathon competitors. And you might think, huh, well,
that's a pretty uniform you know, sample population there, but
(25:13):
in fact that encompass a range of shapes and sizes,
including fifty six different bra sizes from double as to
double h is and band sizes from twenty to so
the methodology is sound, and they found that more than
a third of those women reported breast soreness. But the
(25:35):
correlation between breast soreness and exercise is not so clear cut,
because hello, you know what makes our breaststore our menstrual cycles,
and that is something I can attest to. Yeah, So,
like before I had an IU D, I never got
breast soreness. Ever, I really never had PMS before I
had an I U D. And uh, suddenly I'm you know,
(25:57):
like a thirty two year old woman breaking out and
crampy and also like wanting to murder other drivers on
the road. And my boobs hurt. And it's crazy because
my boobs get so big right before my period and
they hurt and I'm like, oh, it's coming because period
related breast soreness. The struggle is real. The struggle is real.
(26:18):
And I've had days when they're just like so sore
that Yeah, I'm like, Okay, it's gonna be a yoga day.
We are not going to go jogging. What I'm referring
to myself in the Royal we I don't know. Um, well, no, you,
You're encompassing all three of you. Oh yes, me and
uh Lucinda and Lucille. While I was trying to think of,
(26:42):
you know, some rad ladies maybe like me and Glorious
Steinem and Flow Kennedy. It's my my little triumvirate um.
And that London Marathon study though, found that in fact,
my breastoorness is real. Even a cups get sore of
a cup. Women in the study reported soreness and having
(27:04):
a baby can influence this because, as we talked about
in our last episode on the science of saggy breasts,
pregnancy structurally like changes our boobs. Yeah, hormones don't discriminate.
It doesn't matter what size you're boobiz. Your hormone is
probably gonna make it hurt. You know what, your singular hormone.
(27:25):
I don't know why. One hormone. But so the results
of all of this pain, this discomfort, the self uh consciousness, Well,
you've got a lot of women in this study who
ended up training less intensely or skipping training altogether. And
we're gonna get to this in just a little bit.
But do not be disheartened, because there is a surprisingly
(27:49):
effective remedy for a lot of that pain, and that's
called a well fitting sports bra. Yeah, but more on
that and just a little bit, because there was a
more recent study from April that, like the British study
which was actually I think inspired by this study UM
(28:11):
looked at the correlations between women's breast size and exercise
participation and it found that seventeen percent of women avoid
exercise for boob related reasons, specifically lack of a comfortable
support of sports bra. And here we go again. Bounce embarrassment, Yes,
excessive bounce. Yeah, well, I know because people are already
(28:34):
staring at boobs all the time, and if they are
then boobs in motion, people are going to be like,
even if it's not literally to argle you in a
sexual way, if it's just like, oh, look at those
boobs bouncing, you know, you get tired of drawing attention
to your boobs. And listen, not to get two t
M I about it, but we've already talked a lot
about our own breast. I'll go ahead and not another
(28:56):
fact about my boobs and exercise. Obviously, the excess some
bouncing thing not so much an issue for me, but
one reason why I am hesitant to go jogging, especially
on a busy thoroughfare, and just a sports bra without
a shorter tank top over. It is because of nipples.
(29:18):
The old if like if nibbles are visible like at all,
you know, the if the old headlights turn on, because
that just happens. Um, you will get looks. And I mean,
of course, it's just like a thing, you know. I'm
sure people's eyes are just kind of naturally drawn to it.
But I have felt so self conscious before jogging realizing,
(29:40):
you know, in just a sports bra, and then initially
being like, yes, I'm running in just a sports braun
embracing my body, no big deal. Oh god, my nibbles
are really on on parade. Um. Well, I mean that's
I The sports bra that I had, like my main
sports bra, uh, squeezes the life out of me. And
(30:00):
part of that is that it flattens now like flattens
my boobs to my chest so much, but it also
flattens in camouflagees the nips as well. Well. I'm gonna
have a couple of follow up questions for you about
that when we get to our sports bra uh section,
because the whole flattening thing, um is pertinent, pert like
(30:22):
like pert Yes, breast like breast pertin into your party
pert breasts. But in that a study on exercise and
women's breast size, one major factor that correlated to higher
exercise rates was not smaller breasts, but rather higher rates
of breast health knowledge, yes, be empowered educated, broad occation
(30:47):
of knowing about sports bra fits, knowing what should feel okay,
and knowing that if we experience pain or soreness, it
is not necessarily because exercise is bad for our boobs.
But one thing that didn't come up in either of
these studies we've talked about that came to mind as
I was reading this was what about boob sweat? Because
(31:10):
maybe there's an embarrassment factor around that. Although honestly, when
I sweat a lot during um, when I'm exercising, I'm
kind of proud of like all my all my sweat
a little bit um, But if you have larger breasts,
boob sweat can be also a source of discomfort. Well yeah,
because not only is there again the risk of being
augle because like you've got a sweaty chest, or possible
(31:32):
discomfort because it's slipping and sliding down there, but also
like for bigger chests, bigger breasts, you can potentially develop
like a skin condition if you don't dry off, if
you don't have a sports brawl or a shirt that
has wicking properties to get all of that moisture away
from your skin. Yeah, breathability is an important thing to
(31:53):
look for in sports bras because that under boob sweat,
which apparently some people call swoob, can lead to chafing,
possible rashes, and even yeast infections if that moisture hangs
around long enough. And I became aware of this a
couple of years ago when um, a breast antiperspirant came
(32:17):
out on the market and immediately sites like Jezebel jumped
on it. And we're like, oh, here we go again,
just pathologizing something else. We really need antiperspirant for our
boobs now, this is ridiculous. Um. Although I will say
the brand name bust dust is fantastic. Baby powder can
also work. And finally, some larger breasted feminists on the
(32:42):
internet said, hey, excuse um, I see what you mean there,
But for larger breasted women this is thing. Yeah, I mean,
better to wear boob deodorant or boob powder than having
to go to the dermatologist and getting an antifungal topical cream.
You know, I mean, thank god that exists, But wouldn't
(33:02):
you rather just wear boot powder than having to go
go to the dermatologist because you have a boob yeast infection? Yeah,
I mean, and all in that short sightedness to me,
yet again goes around to our lack of brod ducation.
I'm going to keep saying it should just trade market.
I think, so kind of like c literacy, you need
(33:23):
some broad juccation. But what happens when boobs go pro
We're going to talk about that when we come right
back from a quick break and now back to the show. So,
(33:44):
like you said at the top of the podcast, Caroline,
with your example of women's golfing, breasts can literally get
in the way of competitive sports. Well yeah, and I
mean if just look at methodology, if you talk about
the Amazon's, according to Amazon myth, they just totally lopped
(34:05):
off a whole boob so that they could be more
effective with their archery. And there are a lot of
professional or elite athletes who have undergone breast reductions in
an attempt to improve their athletic performance. Although we should
note that there is no study corroborating that that UM
will reliably improve your game or your time whatever. Are
(34:30):
we surprised? I mean there's been like all of like
three boob sports studies sports boobs sports sports boobs studies. Yeah. Yeah, well,
and and also I think there you know, we just
don't We just don't understand though, like how women's bodies
work from head to toe all that well, um, but
in competitive sports such as golfing obviously, archery, hurdler's gymnasts,
(34:54):
tennis players, anything where you have a swing, water polo players,
apparently like keeping your boobs in the water. How many
times have you jumped into a body of water, whether
it is a pool or lake or something and that
top just flies right off. I know that they're in
one pieces, but boots, the risk of them trying to
escape from the top, yes, yes, which happens. And even
(35:16):
Rhonda rousy m M, a fighter UM in the sports
bras you know that the fighters will wear, has had
to contend with potential nip slips because wasn't it her
first professional UFC fight that UM the her opponent was
like on her back trying to essentially break her neck
and so she was worried about like, well, okay, I've
(35:38):
got to survive, but also my sports bra is slipping
dangerously lower and lower and lower. So she's fighting this
woman with one hand and fighting with her sports bra
with the other basically, but if her if she had
experienced a sports bra malfunction during that fight, it certainly
would not have been the first boob to be out
(36:00):
at a sporting event. Yes, so Amanda has noted this
in a piece she wrote over at ESPN magazine, which
I was so thrilled to see when it came out
a couple of years ago, because I was like, yes,
sports boobs, Hello, now one's talking about that. She sight
of this incident in when then eighteen year old Ritrean
(36:21):
runner nebat hobbed to marry him had to run the
majority of a five k meter qualifying heat with her
boob out because she I don't know if she like
left her sports bra at home or what, but she
had to borrow one. No just camsole. She borrowed a singlet,
(36:41):
Oh my god, and didn't have a sports bra under it,
and so she started running and immediately and her boobs
started running away too. Yeah. Well, because as we've disclosed
in the first part of this episode, your boobs are
on the move. Major. Yeah, and and has noted in
the article that understandably this athlete like didn't leave her
(37:05):
apartment for a week. She was just mortified. Again. Thank
god Twitter didn't exist. Oh yeah, oh big time. But
you know you mentioned that there's no real study to
corroborate claims that smaller breasts or no breasts uh helps
your game. Um, but plenty of women have pursued this route.
(37:28):
In two thousand nine, romani and tennis star Simona Hollop
got a breast reduction to help improve her play, and
her play actually did improve. She was a thirty four
double D at the time before her reduction, But there
was a petition that a bunch of guys circulated like
asking her to not have the surgery. And there you go,
(37:49):
there's the oggling factor. Thanks for nothing, because boob bounce
embarrassment roots back to that kind of nonsense. Yeah, but
the next year you have Australian turler Janna Rawlinson, who
announced that she was going to get her breast implants
removed to try to improve her chances of making it
to the Olympics. She actually didn't make it because of
(38:10):
a foot injury, not because of boobs or no boobs.
And even though, like we said, there isn't any firm
data on this, plastic surgeons such as doctor ed Dominankis,
who was speaking to the Orange County Register, assume that
breast implants and larger breasts are a negative in sports
(38:33):
like golf, tennis, and track, although uh, the doctor said
except in boxing, they might help because they would quote
soften the blow, to which I was like, okay, this
man has never been punched in the boobs. We talked
about this in our last episode. We did, and some people,
as we can give m m A and Ronda Rousey,
(38:53):
some have suggested that chess strikes a k A. Boob
punches should be um band in women's UFC fighting. But
Rousey is like, what, no, no, just you just protect
your chest. Well, there was an entire Reddit thread where
somebody was trying to figure out how badly getting punched
(39:13):
in the boob does hurt, and it was so fascinating
to me to look at the responses because so many
women were like, oh, it's the worst. I will have
to lie down on the ground to recover, and other
women were like, no, it doesn't hurt at all. Um,
to me, a boob hit really hurts. A boob hit
when you are like on the verge of a period. Oh,
(39:37):
don't even I can't even, like, I can't even touch them.
There There are so many Yahoo answers type Google results
asking whether getting punched in the breast or the testicles
hurts more, to which I'm like, Internet finds something better
to do with your time. It doesn't matter. Yeah, I don't,
(39:58):
Yeah exactly, but a so back to boxing though, uh
and punching everybody in their boobs in the ring. Uh.
In two thousand nine, British amateur boxer Sarah Bluten was
not allowed to compete in the UK's Amateur Boxing Association
events because of her breast implants. Yeah. And their defense
(40:19):
was saying that it was because of risk to breast tissue.
But plastic surgeons that the Orange County Register and reporting
on this talked to disagreed, saying that our breasts take
more of a beating so to speak, and just day
to day life than her implants would. And Blueten said
their gel implants and so it's not like they could
(40:42):
possibly rupture so um, that was. I mean, that's just
something you would rarely see of an athlete intentionally enlarging
her breasts. Um. And I would also imagine too that
this is a factor for beach volleyball where you know,
I mean, the Olympics is happening as we are recording
this podcast, and um, you know, a lot of uniforms
(41:04):
are essentially like sports bras and briefs, and that is
one of the reasons why it's a really popular sport
for a male audience. Oh have you seen the meme
circulating about beach volleyball. It's showing a woman, uh, and
she's got a hitge job and she's completely covered. She's
on one side of the volleyball net, and then there's
(41:26):
I don't know she's American or Australian on the other
side in her what is basically bikini but sports bra
and briefs. And they were like, now tell us that
one country isn't more empowered than the other, meaning that like,
look at this white woman in her bikini, she's clearly
so much more free to live life the way she
(41:46):
wants to. Oh, I thought it was the reverse, where no,
it was the white guy was like see America is
more free. And basically the entire Internet jumped on this guy,
like are you serious? Yeah, because what I saw was
women are wearing he jobs for personal choice, whereas that
uniform is required, So which is more free? Also, again,
(42:09):
Internet finds something better to do with your time for
for serious such as learning about sports broad technology more productive. Um,
here's the thing we need, and I mean this seriously.
We need better sports broad technology. It is sorely emphasis
on sore lee needed. And this was something that Nicola Brown,
(42:33):
who was the lead author of that London marathon study,
was saying to the New York Times. I mean she
was saying like, this is just like a matter of
basic wellness for women. There are not adequate sports bras
that are affordable. I mean, you can get a really
high tech, super duper sports brat, but it's gonna cost
you upwards of sixty eight dollars yeah, if not more.
(42:56):
I mean there was a great was it on buzzfie
that they sent differently shaped women to try on the
same sports bras to see how they all worked with
different bodies. Um, and I think two of them, two
of the women chose the same bra, but then the
other two chose different ones because just because this one
bra is supposed to be so great doesn't mean it's
(43:17):
going to work for your body type. But often the
ones that are more supportive do tend to be more
outrageously expensive. Yeah, for all of them, the worth performing
was the cheapest Haynds sports bra, which was a bomber,
you know, because a lot of times my sports bras
shopping involves just like walking into target, grabbing what I
(43:38):
see and then um, buying some housewears that I don't need. Well,
of course that is my struggle as well in life. Um.
But the thing though about sports process, You're supposed to
replace them so often like a toothbrush, and so I don't.
I don't because they're so expensive. Yeah, I didn't realize
(43:58):
that I'm basically need to get rid of all but
two of my sports bras. But the thing is, though
sports broughts make a massive difference in terms of that
breast soreness issue. This is the fact that I was
teasing to earlier where Nicola Brown that researchers said that
their right fitting sports bra can reduce breast discomfort regardless
(44:20):
of your breast size and around of women who experience it.
I mean, that's it's a pretty powerful sports bra right there,
But it's just a matter of getting the right fit.
I would argue that a right fitting sports bra is
even more important than the right fitting bra bra, although
I am more likely to cry trying on sports bras
(44:43):
than regular bras because if you want a very supportive
sports bra, it's probably going to be very restrictive, so
trying to get in and out of them. Do you
know how hard it is to like try to squeeze
into a sports bra only to find out that it's
either too big or too small, and then trying to
pull it off, and you like just look at your
shoulder and then you're crying at Nike and you realize
your blood sugars crashed. I mean, that's why you get
(45:05):
the ones with the back clasps. Yeah, that'd be helpful. Yeah,
those do exist, but again those are going to be
your price er bras um and in the same way
as we talked about with the science of breast sag
in our last podcast, and the fact of the matter is,
like we're just late to the game on all of this.
(45:27):
We didn't start studying breast biomechanics until the nineteen nineties, Um,
probably because you finally had more women um in the
field being like, hey, here is something that directly applies
to my life, um, and we should study. But also,
breasts are just really hard to study like this because
they're so varied and it's hard to replicate the a
(45:52):
representative breast population in motion, you know what I mean,
Because it's like you would how how do you forward that? Well? Right?
Not obviously not all breasts are the same size and shape.
But obviously not everybody is literally only running on a treadmill.
You know. There's like, obviously so many different types of
activity even just walking around day to day, um, that
(46:13):
you would need a different type of sports brawl for.
But the big thing that I learned in terms of
sports broad technology is that originally they were just all
about compression, smush them down, keep them in, and those
are the basic like uni boob style sports bras are
probably the most familiar with. But now companies like a
Brooks or a Nike are looking at how to isolate
(46:39):
specific movement areas. I thought you were going to say,
how to isolate specific boobs, specific boom boobment areas because
of that figure eight motion, you know, and man, I
want to be like, I want to go to that lab.
I want to go to that sports brawl lab so
bad if anyone listening can hook me up with some
(46:59):
sports bra research. But that just kind of thinking about
booba art, Like what if you paint your nipples and
then run in front of a canvas? Like would you
get some cool figure eights going? There's only one way
to find out, I know, talk about the best like
pinterest craft. I'm sure it's been done, but in the
meantime until our perfect, magical, affordable sports bra that I
(47:24):
argue should be like government subsidized for low income people
with breasts, whatever your gender identity is. Um. There are
some tips for things that you can do to alleviate
some of that pain. Specifically, if you have larger breasts,
look for encapsulation style sports bras rather than the uniboop
(47:45):
style because those encapsulation style sports bras were the ones
that have separate cups. And right now in the studio,
I am making a cup gesture at Carolina. We're like
the Lady Gaga monster hands. Honestly, it feels a little
aggressive because I'm doing it at you. But those encapsulation
(48:06):
styles are are way more effective at controlling movement, and
that was something that was corroborated in that BuzzFeed experiment
trying to find the perfect bra, where um, the two
women with the largest brass were like, oh my god,
I had no idea. As soon as they put on
an encapsulation style bra, it was a whole new world.
And also, the focus doesn't need to be so much
(48:28):
on whether you have underwire or whether you have adjustable
straps on your sports bra because of your bra, support
actually comes from the band around your ribs, which I
can adjust to with my sports bra. That made me
cry in the Nike dressing room. But underwire and adjustable
straps those like clippy things. If you have a larger frame,
(48:52):
those are going to dig into your skin, so avoid
that well. Especially yeah, especially if you're doing some type
of uh, lengthy exercise, like if you're gonna go running
for hours, um, that can eventually really make you hate life.
Also just running for hours hour like I don't know,
maybe you're doing an iron Man, an iron woman, an
iron ironman, Ironman. Again, the back clasps can make life
(49:17):
a lot easier, so confront class. Oh yes, the front class.
Although but then that would make it harder if you
do have the what did you call it, encapsulated style,
the because you need if you've got that style, you
need the front and center of the broad to be
resting on your breastphone um and the band to be
sitting comfortably. So the front class might interfere with that.
(49:40):
Um just all the more important to maybe talk to
somebody who knows who has a better broad ducation. Also,
look for breathability. That's a big factor for reducing potential chafe.
And those super strappy Lululemon bras that are really cute
my not work the best support wise. Um yeah, like
(50:03):
maybe maybe if you're gonna, like go do yoga or
some low impact thing where you just want to wear
a sports bra but you don't care about bouncing or
support all that much. Maybe, but yeah, I mean the
two two of the girls in the BuzzFeed piece chose
the Lula Lemon bra um. One of them was smaller chested,
but the other girl who chose them, I think was
a sea cup. So I mean, Lilua Lemon bras will
(50:26):
cost you a fortune, but I mean they are very
well made. But again, those the multi strappie. Multiple straps
don't equal multiple support because again it's all about that
waste band or the chest band. Excuse me, maybe you've
got a waste band on your bra. I don't know. Yeah,
how high your your girdle bra? And again, you know
(50:49):
you're probably gonna have to to replace the more often
the way that you would your tennis shoes. You know,
if you're if you're out there running every single day,
for instance, you're going to have to replace your tennis
shoes or you're running shoes more often than someone like
me who doesn't run, um, but who used to. All right,
step judging. Um, it's the same with your sports bras
there with all of that supporting and the stretching and
(51:12):
everything that's happening, and washing them regularly. I hope they're
eventually going to get warned down they are And I
think the biggest thing that I would advocate and also listeners,
I would love some tips on how to better do this.
But we need to do such a better and more
vigilant job of just normalizing breast development for girls because obviously,
(51:36):
like we need better sports bas yes, but you know
the fact that for girls and women alike, that embarrassment
factor plays such a prominent role in determining whether we
do or don't exercise for healthsake. This is not about
staying then, this is about being healthy. What did Sissy
SpaceX mother call them and carry dirty pillows? We need
(51:58):
to get away from the mentality that what is on
your chest as you're developing through puberty are dirty and
somehow embarrassing and shameful because it's just part of your body.
So the more that we can understand about our anatomy
and our development, what's healthy, what's unhealthy, the better for
all of us. And hopefully the fewer um popular girls
(52:18):
who will approach girls like me and for some reason
shame them about needing to wear a bra. Very bizarre
to me, Braham, because that was something I thought that
would be like a badge of pride, like who got
their period first. I don't know. I don't know. We
can't all live in a Judy Bloom book. It's true,
it's true. And when it comes to raducation, boys need
it too, in the sense of raising boys to treat
(52:41):
and look at girls as humans rather than sex objects.
So and and for them to to just understand like
basic female development you know, um destigmatize all of this stuff.
It's healthy for every body. Yeah. So with that, listeners,
(53:02):
we want to hear all of your thoughts. I know
we have a lot of people who exercise, whether with
organized sports or casually work out in our audience. I
know a lot of people are probably listening to this
podcast while they are jogging or at the gym, and
I am so curious to know whether this rings true
for you and any tips that you can offer, any
(53:24):
sports bras that you can recommend, send it all our way.
Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
email address. You can also tweet us at mom Stuff
podcast or messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple
of messages to share with you right now. So I
(53:45):
have a letter here from Eleanor about our two parter
talking to Terry O'Neill, the president of the National Organization
for Women. Eleanor writes, OMG, your latest podcast interviewing Terry
O'Neil had me crying to years of joy. I loved
hearing her talk about the support of black women on
Twitter and lgbt Q I a people. It made me
(54:08):
so proud of all of our trailblazers and philled me
with feminist pride. I've only thought of NOW as a
pretty chill organization, but it had some problematic history. But
I'm so glad you guys taught me about their intersectionality. Plus,
I really enjoyed the mentions about how NOW wanted women
to stay angry. It inspired me to find my anger
and go march and pick it and protest in the streets.
(54:32):
Let's get the e r A passed, y'all. Let's go
angry feminists. Thanks for your fantastic podcast, Eleanor, And she says, ps,
screw Judge Aaron Pursky. Yeah, and and Judge Persky is
the one who made the decision in both Stanford rape
case to essentially about a rapist off. I have just
(54:54):
the most touching letter from Catherine, who writes when I
turned twenty, I dropped out of college. I've been major
hopping for two and a half years and realized I
had to decide what to do with my life in
order to justify taking out more student loans. I spent
the next two years working a dead end job in
a manufacturing plant, typically spending three days a week on
(55:14):
the production floor and two days a week doing custodial work.
I want to go on record as saying that factory
workers are some of the hardest working and kindest people
in the world, and our entire society would crumble without them.
Here here, However, I hated my job. I actually looked
forward to my cleaning days because scrubbing toilets meant I
was allowed to listen to my iPod. So fast forward
(55:37):
to Catherine's discovery of stuff Mom never told you, and
she says, one day I heard the first Sminty episode
about librarians, and the one she's referencing folks was I
think from two thousand nine or ten years ago, she says.
I ended up spending the last hour and a half
of the day hidden in the cleaning supply closet, perched
(55:59):
on an upturn in five gallon bucket, googling how to
become a librarian on my phone. I achieved Step one
to a happy life, figure out what you want. It
was time for step two, figure out what you have
to do to get it. I discovered that in order
to become a librarian and run my own library someday,
I needed to go to grad school, which meant going
back and getting my bachelors, which was somewhat intimidating. Within
(56:22):
a few weeks, I had applied to two schools, one
that offered a b a. In Women's and Gender studies
and a community college as a safety school to boost
my g p A. My essay and letters of recommendation
must have been convincing because I was accepted and I
majored in women in Gender Studies, and for a school
in a state that's around white, we had an amazingly
intersectional program. More than half of the WSG professors I
(56:46):
had a woman of color, three of my favorite professors
or immigrants, and I had at least as many queer
professors of straight. Instead of listening to Sminty while scrubbing toilets,
I was listening during my commute to school, and Spinty
episode topics and fun facts made it to my papers
and classroom discussions on a regular basis. This past May,
I graduated as a member of our WSG honor society,
(57:08):
Iota Iota Iota, and finished my undergrad with a three
point four g p A. I'm the first of my
immediate family to finish college, and a couple of months
I'm heading to the university of Denver, my first choice
grad school, where I will be getting my master's in
Library and Information Sciences. I'm currently on the longest step
to a happy life, Step three, do the work. Even
(57:31):
though the original Librarian episode was before Caroline's time, I
thought it was important that I share my story with
you wonderful ladies. One episode of this podcast sparked an
epiphany that completely altered the trajectory of my life. I
highly doubt I'm the only one out there who has
had this type of experience on behalf of all of
us who have had their lives changed by this podcast.
I want to say thank you so freaking much, even
(57:53):
though we've never met. I love you both to the
moon and back. Well Cat, First of all, congratulation, Second
of all, you are a badass. And third, thank you
for one of the best letters we have ever received.
And um, I don't want to put words in your mouth, Caroline,
(58:14):
but I can say for myself that y'all have changed
my life as much as perhaps we have changed yours.
So thank you so much. And if you have letters
to make us cry as well, Mom Stuff at how
stuff works dot Com is our email address and for
links to all of our social media as well as
all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts with our sources
(58:36):
so you can learn so much more about boobs. Head
on over to Stuff Mom Never told You dot com
for moral this, and thousands of other topics. Is It
How stuff Works dot com
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