WHY ARE BREASTS GETTING BIGGER?

BrITAIN is getting bigger, with the average woman now three dress sizes larger and two stone heavier than she was a century ago. And there’s one part of the female anatomy that’s growing the fastest: our breasts.

Over the past 100 years, the average bust size of UK women has ballooned from a petite B-cup to a buxom DD.

Experts say the increase is as much as 6.3cm, making Britain’s boobs some of the biggest in the world — ahead of America (C-cup), France (B-cup) and Japan (A-cup).

Now scientists warn that our swelling chests aren’t good news.

This week, it was revealed that big breasts are behind an epidemic of backache, with one in five UK women under 40 admitting to suffering from debilitating back or neck pain.

Breast reduction operations are on the rise in the UK, up by 11 per cent to 5,476 a year since last year. They’ve almost doubled since 2008, when there were just 3,845.

Around a third of these are carried out on the NHS.

It is, experts say, a worrying trend that has its roots not only in our changing eating habits but factors as unlikely as the cosmetics we use and how much milk we drink. So what’s behind Britain’s booming bosoms — and will they keep on growing?

Dr Nicola Brown, of the University of Portsmouth’s research Group In Breast Health, has studied data on bust size dating back to the Fifties. She says the basic answer is simple: with one in three women overweight, Britain is growing in girth — and it’s showing all over.

‘Breasts are primarily made up of fatty tissue, so it’s logical to think that, if a woman’s fat levels are increased overall, her breast size will increase,’ she explains. ‘If you look at body composition, women with larger breasts tend to be heavier and have higher levels of body fat.’ OBESITY alone doesn’t explain the surge, however. While average cup size has jumped by two measurements, the average back size has risen just one, from 34in to 36in — suggesting that not all women with DD- cup breasts are carrying excess weight.

‘It’s far more likely to be linked to diet and nutrition, not necessarily the bad things we eat, but simply what we eat,’ says Dr David Bainbridge, a reproductive biologist at the University of Cambridge and author of Curvology, a study of changing female body shapes.

‘We are better fed today than at any point in history. Look back to the Twenties, when women ate simple, carbohydrate-based meals; or the Forties, when rationing was in force and nobody ate much at all.

‘No wonder they had small breasts. As our bodies have become better nourished, they’ve become larger — women are taller, with broader shoulders and bigger busts.’

Changes in society have a lot to do with women’s figures, too. In her study, Dr Brown found breast size varied widely among different ethnic populations — with Hispanic women having much larger breasts than Indian women, with an average measurement around the chest and back of 109cm compared with 81cm.

‘The diversity of the UK population as a result of immigration could be a factor,’ she says. ‘Our population is also ageing, and we do see larger breast sizes in older people, as there tends to be a shift of weight from the lower to the upper body.’

Hormones such as oestrogen, the female sex hormone which makes our bodies change during puberty, also play a part: up to 70 per cent of all British women have used the contraceptive pill at some stage in their lives, with 25 per cent of 16 to 49-year olds currently on oral contraception. This pumps the body full of oestrogen, which in turn stimulates the milk ducts inside the breasts and promotes growth.

‘Early versions of the Pill contained even higher dosages of synthetic oestrogen than today, says Dr Marilyn Glenville, a leading nutritionist specialising in women’s health.

‘ It’s not just pre- menopausal women, either. Hormone replacement therapy, or HrT, tops up declining oestrogen levels in menopausal women, and one of the side effects is breast swelling.’

The link between increased oestrogen levels and bigger breasts is so clear that there are even ‘breast-enhancing’ supplements on the market, containing ingredients such as fennel seed, which is said to have similar, size-enhancing properties.

But synthetic versions of these hormones, known as ‘xenoestrogens’ — or ‘foreign oestrogens’ — are also found in the environment.

In 2002, Environment Agency research found that a form of oestrogen, believed to have entered British rivers through waste products from companies that make plastics or pesticides, was responsible for feminising a third of the male

fish population. ‘ These chemicals are everywhere,’ says Dr Glenville. ‘ They’re found in dental fillings, the resins coating the inside of food and drinks cans, toiletries and cosmetics. Women can be applying moisturisers containing these xenoestrogens to their skin and often directly to their breasts.

‘ Our skin absorbs these chemicals readily — so it’s not inconceivable that they stimulate growth in breast tissue.’

Milk- drinkers may also be affected. The introduction of intensive dairy farming methods over the past 50 years means that two-thirds of the milk we drink comes from pregnant cows.

This is because keeping cows constantly pregnant ensures they produce a steady supply. Their milk naturally contains higher levels of oestrogen than milk from non-pregnant cows, and this oestrogen is absorbed into the body when we drink it, albeit in small amounts.

So would simply weaning ourselves off dairy and cutting down on cosmetics reduce the nation’s cup size?

Dr Bainbridge says the trend for larger boobs shows no sign of slowing down.

‘It’s happened gradually over a period of 100 years,’ he explains. ‘Puberty in girls has started around 12 days earlier each year, so that’s around four years in total since 1900. That means those hormones are sloshing around in women’s bodies for a lot longer than they used to.

‘ We don’t know what that means for the future. Women may well get bigger still. We’re living in an age that celebrates bigger busts — and it’s probably just as well.’

THE trend was for athletic bodies, typified by model Jerry Hall, with hips 2in wider than the bust. Diets were high in fat, so boobs got much bigger 1980s, 36C

POOR diet — dry bread, potatoes and cheap cuts of meat — meant flapper girls had small busts and boyish figures, like the musical star Bebe Daniels 1920s, 31A

CATWALKS echoed the slim Twenties’ styles, but breasts grew again and hour-glass figures were in vogue, as Bond girl Barbara Bach revealed 1970s, 34C

WE ATE better so breasts were bigger, as shown by screen siren Jean Harlow, but illness was rife and many women were badly nourished 1930s, 32A/B

MARILYN MONROE was the ultimate pin-up — curvier, sexier and bigger-breasted. Postwar women indulged themselves more and were confident about carrying more weight 1950s, 34C

SALMA HAYEK’S recent eye-popping outfit shows how much women have changed since the Twenties — we’re bigger-busted than ever and we’re not afraid to show it NOW, 37DD

IN A decade when Twiggy was a role model, bosoms got smaller. However, lower halves were actually larger and Barbarella star Jane Fona proved curves were still a hit 1960s, 34B

SKINNY chic was a mantra, but most women could match Liz Hurley on top. Our figures were pear-shaped, with natural breasts and waists that had grown 4in in two decades 1990s, 37C

THE Bridget Jones era saw us piling on the pounds. Role models such as Nigella Lawson made curves seem sexy and breast augmentation surgery soared 2000s, 37D

RATIONING meant that even stars like Angela Lansbury had a sparse but healthy diet. Women were one inch larger all round than in the Twenties 1940s, 33B