Can Bra Size Change the Way Women Exercise?
Bra sizes can impact how you dress, what kinds of bags you carry, and even how you walk—and, according to a new study, your breast size can even affect your exercise habits. Any well-endowed woman (or any woman with particularly sensitive breasts) can tell you that running without a sports brais just asking for trouble, but now there’s scientific support acknowledging that exercise can be challenging for large-breasted women.
The study, as reported by the New York Times,this link opens in a new tab was published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sportthis link opens in a new tab in March and surveyed 355 women on their exercise habits and whether the women thought their breast size influenced how they exercised. The authors of the study—researchers at the Biomechanics Research Laboratory at the University of Wollongong in Australia—also took precise measurements and scans to classify each participant’s breasts as small, medium, large, or very large. (Because we all know bra size can be notoriously inconsistent.)
Excerpted from Real Simple