Ill-fitting bra can harm your breasts

New Delhi, Sat, 26 Jul 2008 Shivani Gupta

An ill-fitting bra can prove harmful for your breasts leading to many serious problems like discomfort and pain in breasts, pensive psychological effect, body pain (i.e. Neck, back and shoulder pain) and even breast cancer in the later stages of life.

Researchers from the University of Portsmouth, England have emphasisingly stated that many women across the world, who are either ignorant of their true bust size or are embarrassed to wear the right one, damage their breasts in the process.


The report published on the website of the University of Portsmouth, stated that wearing the wrong size bra can irreparably stretch fragile ligaments and damage the breasts. Over 50 bra designs were tested over 100 women for almost three years by the researchers lead by Dr Joanna Scurr.

It was found through a treadmill test that breasts move up to 21 cm during exercise, and they move not only up and down but also from side to side, yet most bras are designed in a way that they only allow vertical movement.

One of the researchers, Wendy Hedger, said that many women have strong preferences for certain styles of bra and won't buy anything else. They won't even look at anything that doesn't look like the sort of bra they are used to wearing.

It’s amusing to know the philosophy of women who adhere to sports bra only. They believe that a perfect and in fact a real sports bra is the one which they can wear like a crop top, i.e. that doesn't fastens at the back.

However, Hedger proved it wrong by stating that many sports bras fasten at the back like a traditional bra, and they are very good at supporting the breasts.

There appears to be a certain social stigma regarding certain size bras which leads the ladies to buy a bra that is not comfortable and cause them breast pain.

Many women delude themselves by buying a normal size bra as they don't want to be seen as too small or too big and buy a bra that doesn't fit well in order to be what they consider to be a normal size.

Some women continue wearing the same sized bras for years irrespective of the fact that their bodies may undergo certain changes in shape and size, especially after delivery during breastfeeding and menopause.