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!