Our previous discussion was on how in an earlier age women, who had smaller breast sizes, used a sheath-like fabric to cover themselves. Today let’s look at the reasons behind the increasing breast sizes that the contemporary woman is struggling with.

Collating information from various studies as well as speaking from my own experience of dealing with women’s bodies for 30 years, it’s clear that there’s been an overall increase in women’s girth: the waist has gone up by an inch whereas the breasts have put on 2 inches on an average.

What seems mysterious is the result of a variety of reasons, all of which fit under the label lifestyle changes:

The first culprit is preservatives. We are not only overeating processed food, but we’re also overlooking the fact that all such food use preservatives, which bring about hormonal changes and cause rapid and stubborn weight gain. To put it mildly, preservatives aid the hunger hormones within us.

Second, chemicals called parabens that are commonly used as preservatives in cosmetics. There is increasing evidence of parabens having an estrogenic effect; and estrogen, put simply, is the hormone that aids breast growth. Parabens penetrate our bodies through the skin by use of products.

Hectic lifestyles have left little time for cooking, exercising or slapping oneself together with stuff from the pantry as home beauty products. Not to mention the contraceptives or morning after pills, those too love to bloat us up thanks to the hormones that they are made of. Our breasts don’t stand a chance against this onslaught of chemicals.

Third, on the flip side, our breast sizes have increased also because we are far better nourished than before. Childhood diseases have been eradicated and people have much more access to food, thus making each generation bigger and stronger than the one before. For all the reasons mentioned above the menstruating age has come down from 16 to 11 in the span of a century. It’s all part of a chain.

Even 20 years back, I was besieged by mothers of would-be brides about ways of increasing their daughters’ charm with my creations. Breast augmentation surgeons were sought after and botched cases made their way to us for solutions.

All has changed.

The columnist is the founder-CEO of Necessity-SwatiGautam, a customised brand of brassieres. Contact: necessityswatigautam@gmail.com