British boobs are burgeoning

Shergar is still missing (presumed glue) and the common cold is still common, but one mystery is over-riding them all: the blossoming, boobilicious British bust.

Over the last decade, the average bra size of the British woman has climbed from a dainty 34B to a more unruly 36C.
Marks and Spencer say a quarter of all their bras sold are a D cup or above – twice the number of D cups sold three years ago.

Bravissimo, which caters for curvaceous women, now stocks bras in cup size K to meet demand.

Although breast implants account for some of the rise – there were 10,000 boob jobs in 2007 alone – experts say it’s far more complicated than that.

A combination of hormones, environmental factors, alcohol use and obesity have all been mooted, with no clear definitive answer found.

It may sound like a cheap excuse to crack some puns in a news article, but actually, there’s a serious point under all the Carry On-style whooping: there is a direct correlation between the health of women’s breasts and their bodies on the whole.

Breast is best?

Quoted in the Daily Mail, nutritionist Marilyn Glenville says clients who receive hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to cope with the menopause are noticing an increased bust size.

The increase, she suspects, is due to breast tissue being encouraged to grow by the influx of the hormone, oestrogen.

It is possible that stimulating the oestrogen receptors in the breasts artificially, after the menopause, could contribute towards breast cancer.

“Putting women on HRT is giving the body oestrogen at a stage when it would not normally have it,” she said.

“The more exposure we have, the more likely we are to get breast cancer.”

According to Cancer Research UK, around 70% of breast cancers are oestrogen-driven.

Girls are hitting puberty at an earlier age, increasing the total amount of oestrogen exposure they will receive through their lives.

Western women have fewer children now than ever before and – as oestrogen dips during pregnancy and breastfeeding - the body is again exposed to higher levels of oestrogen.

Big is beautiful?

While hormonal increases and environmental factors such as pesticides have some effect, scientists are locking horns on just how much these are to blame.

Obesity, on the other hand, is indisputable. We are, as a nation, getting fatter. Around half of us are overweight and one fifth is classified as obese.
Fat is distributed throughout the body, with busts gaining girth alongside bums and tums.

The important thing to look at is body fat percentage, in other words, how much of your weight is fat.

If you have a high percentage of body fat, the key is to lower your sugar intake and reduce the amount of processed food, switching to wholegrains, lean proteins and fresh vegetables.

It’s not all doom and bloom though: bigger breasts can be a key to a longer life as it is a sign of better nutrition levels in children. It may simply be that we have bigger boobs than our ancestors because we are healthier.