When I speak about breast health with
women today and suggest that by omitting their bras
when they dress they could improve their breast
health, they get a look of panic on their faces.
Just the suggestion of not wearing a bra causes them
to have great concern.
Like most people, I would really like
to see a lot fewer cases of breast cancer occurring.
It has been shown by several reliable studies that
the wearing of bras is directly related to a higher
risk of a woman being diagnosed with breast cancer.
But even knowing that fact, women still do not want
to remove their bras.
What is it that causes a woman to be
reluctant to dress without her bra? If I ask a woman
the question “Can you tell me exactly why you put on
a bra when you get dressed?” any one of the
following answers may be forthcoming:
-
“ALL ‘Good
Girls’ wear bras… undergarments. Only naughty
girls leave them off, right?” - - The brassiere
is only just now approaching 100 years old. I
wonder… does that mean that during all of those
centuries before the bra was invented, were all
women being naughty?
-
"I have
been wearing a bra since I was a teen-ager!” -
- Mothers want to do what is “right” for their
children, and women have been told for a century
that women ‘need’ to wear a bra, so they take
their daughters shopping and bra manufacturers
have conveniently provided “training bras” for
young women. VERY young women. For girls that
have not even started to develop breasts. What
are those tiny bras going to? Do the
manufacturers think they can train the breasts
to grow in certain ways… like a trellis can
train a rose bush? Or is it just a way to get
the girls accustomed to wearing an
uncomfortable, unnatural bra?
-
“If I don’t wear
a bra, my breasts will sag to my knees!” - -
Even the undergarment manufacturers admit this
is not true. It was a mantra of the undergarment
industry for years, and it is still talked
about, but conversely, it has been proven that
by NOT wearing a bra, the natural supportive
tissues of the breasts will actually develop
more lift and support the breasts higher
than if a bra is worn, even when worn most of
the day, every day.
-
“If
I don’t wear a bra, my breasts… wiggle!” - - Yes, they will.
If breasts do not ‘wiggle’ and move naturally,
the toxins and cellular wastes that build up in
breast tissues will not be able to be flushed
out of the breasts by the natural flow of
lymphatic fluids. Cellular waste products are
body cells’s daily garbage, and just ask
yourself: “What damage is being done to breast
tissues that are constantly subjected to
stagnant garbage?” Lymphatic fluids flow past
breast tissues and carry away that garbage, but
those fluids do not flow on their own. Since
there is no ‘heart’ to pump those fluids,
breast movement has to do the job of moving
that fluid and waste from the breasts.
Therefore, if the breasts are prevented from
moving, the lymphatic fluids cannot flow
properly. Bras that hold the breasts from moving
impede the removal of that garbage, and that is
strongly suspected as a source of damage to
breast cells.
-
“These ‘girls’
are far too large to not be supported. Without a
bra they HURT!” - - We can all sympathize with
that. However, the women that became concerned
enough to try dressing without a bra find that
after several weeks of being without artificial
breast support, even those with very large
breasts, found that their natural support came
quickly into play and not only the pain from
their breasts being unsupported went away, pain
from the constant pressure on their shoulders
from the bra straps went away as well.
-
“If I don’t wear
a bra, I look… frumpy!” - - I think that we are
getting down to the real reason for women to
keep using a bra. Appearance! They don’t want to
look… ‘frumpy’. They want to look nice. They
want to look beautiful. They want to look like
the ‘beautiful’ people. No one can fault them
for that. We all like to look beautiful.
3. OK,
if appearance is the real reason for women to
wear a bra, or more importantly… YOUR reason to wear
a bra, maybe we can follow up on that and ‘reason’
with that concept. After all, understanding that
reason… knowing how we might be able to reduce our
risk of breast cancer… can mean a woman’s life. Many
women’s lives. Over fifty thousand women’s lives in
the U.S. last year.
On top of that, a third of a
million women will deal with breast cancer
this year, and there is nothing at all fashionable
about that. We all want to change that number.
Soon.
A woman looks to others for an
indication of what ‘fashion’ or ‘style’ of clothing
is ‘popular’ or ‘acceptable’ today. We know that
this ‘fashion’ or ‘style’ changes over time. But to
whom does a woman look to, to find what is ‘hot’
today? Some look at what their friends are doing.
Some follow the direction of people that are
otherwise influential in their lives. Some look to
the ‘beautiful’ people to see what THEY do… how THEY
dress. Who are those people? Are they the haute
couture… the famous fashion designers of today?
Probably not too likely, because if you tune into
YouTube and watch some of those ‘high-fashion’
fashion shows, none of those women wear bras with
those fashions, and some of the fashions are even
bare-breasted. Probably not what you are inclined to
try at this point.
Does
today's woman look to
the ‘movers’ and ‘shakers’ in
business? Are they the ever-present politicians in
our lives? Women in the sixties loved to dress the
way Jackie Kennedy dressed, a lot of them wore the
small hat that she liked, and many styled their hair
in the new ‘Jackie Cut’.
Do
women follow the trends of
the people in Hollywood? I have
included in this document ‘screen shots’ taken
from the computer of ‘women in the news’. Take a
moment to look them over. You may recognize many
of them as being someone you admire… or dislike…
because of things that they say or do or have
done. Maybe they are a favorite actress or a
favorite singer. Either way, what they wear is
‘important’, because it is seen by many, and
many consider them to be the ‘leaders’ in
today’s current fashions. Have you noticed that
one thing that all of these women have in
common? Yes, they are all women. Yes, they all
have breasts. Did you notice that not one of
them is wearing a bra?
I
know...
they run in different circles
than you do... but do they really? Are these
women not presently in your ‘circle of
influence’? Does what they wear not influence
how you dress, if not today then the next time
you go shopping for clothes? Or is it how you
may wish to look?
I remember back when I was in
school, back in the “fifties”, most girls that I
knew were very much influenced by what women in
Hollywood and on Broadway wore in their daily
lives. That was when the women all wore bras
that not only emphasized their breasts, but made
them take on a conical shape that today are
referred to as “bullet bras”.
Whatever they were called,
they were heavily-constructed and
un-yielding bras. They made a statement. It
was clear that the woman was wearing
a bra, because no woman’s breasts could ever
naturally be located that high on
their chest, take that shape, or be that
pointed. Hugging them felt like you were
hugging a mattress. And their breasts did
not move at all. Those women are the
generation that now suffer from a 1-in-8
risk of breast cancer… their mothers only
faced a 1-in-16 risk. Their grandmothers had
even a lower risk than that… and many did
not wear a bra unless they HAD to when they
went to town, where they would be SEEN.
(gasp)
In that ‘fifties generation’,
if a woman were to even consider not wearing
a bra, the average person would likely
compare how she looked with how the movie
stars would look, and there was no
comparison between the ‘natural’ woman and
the trussed-up woman's appearance. Breasts
have a natural shape and location on the
chest that most bras cannot match,
especially those bras back then. But because
the ‘model’ or the ‘standard’ to which the
average woman would be compared had the
high-breasted look, the un-supported woman
just did not look ‘right’ back then. These
‘modern’ women of today that we see in these
images must look ‘right’ today, or they
would all not dress this way.
It is easy to see why a woman
would want to look ‘correct’, at least by
the ‘standards’ that our society hold. And
Hollywood women are very influential in our
society. So when a woman dresses, she is
going to want to look as close to as good as
how the girls in Hollywood look as she can.
Those celebrities are today’s ‘standard’
after all.
If these women in Show biz
are the standard to which women look today
for fashion style, and if women are
concerned about not ‘looking right’ if they
leave off the bra, perhaps they should
notice what a lot of the ‘celebrities’ are
NOT wearing today.
Most importantly, what do YOU
think? Are there more women in Hollywood
today that are naughty (and in the fifties
they were not naughty)? Did their mothers
not raise today's starlets in training bras?
Are they not worried about their breasts
sagging? Or wiggling? Or do they dare to
look… frumpy? (gasp)
Or maybe… they have heard how
dangerous bras actually are?
Either way, if the ‘beautiful
people’ are not afraid of societal pressures
for not wearing a bra, maybe other women
will feel more comfortable about being kind
to their breasts and be more inclined to try
the bra-free life. They have nothing to lose
by trying it… and a LOT to gain.
And as far as the other major
influence in a woman’s life… gentlemen, we
need to do our part and encourage our loved
ones that want to be bra-free to do so, and
compliment them on their natural beauty. And
don’t you dare make any stupid comments
about their doing it to get compliments, or
attract the cute guy down at the market.
They need our full support and
encouragement. After all, they are doing it
for their health, and their life. And, they
are doing it for YOU!
|
|