Meh. Thoughts so far:
1/ Are bra sizes the same now as they were 50 years ago? I know in the US at least, women's clothing sizes have been changed in that period, so that what used to be called size 6 is now called size 0. This was pure marketing spin. Since fashion/culture dictated that the "ideal" woman's body size was smaller than the actual average, marketing clothes in a way that made your customers feel thinner was going to be good for business. So, they resized everything down to smaller numbers. Hey presto, Mrs. Average walks into a store and is miraculously more svelte than she was last week. What a nice brand. Must buy that one.
OTOH, "ideal" boob sizes were larger than the actual average, so that would also provide opportunity for marketing spin. If you make your customers feel like they are suddenly more "well endowed" they may be more likely to buy your product. So, it would be logical to resize bra cups in the opposite way to how it was done with clothes. The effect of this would be, you guessed it, "larger" bras being sold.
Now I don't know if this resizing was done with bras or not, but I'm sure the marketing peeps who did it for clothes would be thinking of other possible things to spin. So, that's the first thing I'd check: actual sizes 50 years ago compared to actual sizes today.
2/ This article isn't from a paper in
Nature. It's from the entertainment section (yup) of a commercial news organisation. IOW, even the publishers apparently consider this to just be entertainment. This would indicate that the content is probably about as scientific as Beavis and Butthead sniggering because someone said "boobz".
3/ Why the fuck are they quoting the opinion of a cardiologist? A cardiologist's field of expertise is the thumpy thumpy thing behind teh boobz. A cardiologist may also study boobz (god knows most of us do, cardiologists or not) but this would only be a hobby, not a field in which said cardiologist's opinion would be of any more interest or relevance than my opinion.
4/ This quote:
"Bra company Eveden Australia launched a K cup into the market last year. The company's fitting specialist, Victoria Jubb, said obesity contributed significantly to the expanding chest sizes but the number of small-figured women with large breasts was on the increase.
"We're noticing a lot more girls with small backs and bigger bust sizes being fitted," she said.
Eveden's top-selling size is a 10G. "
Well, in case you didn't know, that particular company specialises in accoutrements for women who are big in all departments. Ergo, it is not surprising that their best selling item would be of a size that would be far too large for most Australian women.
5/ Also, re the small framed women being fitted, does anyone have a clue about what may have become more common in the last couple of decades? I'll give you a clue: Dolly Parton. Yup, fake tits. They used to be solely for porn stars and wierdos. These days they're accepted as being pretty much mainstream. Not surpisingly, an increase in the number of implant operations is not going to decrease average breast size.
6/ The research director for Family Planning mentioned that, in her opinion, which as far as I can tell from the article is not backed by actual studies, she thought it
possible that high dosage contraceptive pills
might be one factor. That's a fair enough comment from her, but is not grounds for panicking about mutation.
7/ There has been research conducted about negative effects of pseudo-oestrogens, but from what I've seen the main concern has been the effect on wildlife, particularly fish. Sex determination in fish, reptiles and birds is so dramatically different to sex determination in primates that the former do not even have X and Y chromosomes. Yes, fish, reptiles and birds do have chromsomes and yes, they are responsible for sex determination, so they are
analogous to the human equivalents, but they are still dramatically different. So, results from studies on those species may not have any relevance to humans.
8/ Australia's population is aging and, in general, older people in affluent societies tend to get fatter. So, an increase in the average age would give an increase in teh chubbies. As women get fatter their boobs get bigger, simply because boobs are just bags of fat. Increase body fat deposits, and they will increase everywhere. On top of that, there is a growing problem with obesity across all ages ranges, which will compound the effect.
So yes, fat people. This was mentioned in the article, so I'm damned if I know why anyone would overlook it.
There are probably more points that could be made, but those will do for now. Once you have accurate stats on the contributions made by all of these factors, then you might be in a position to start figuring out what proportion of the remainder of the effect (assuming there is a remainder) might be due to pseudo-oestrogens.
PS: I could add 9/ Direct observation. As it so happens, I have been conducting my own informal study of Australian boobs for almost the entire 50 year period under discussion. If this article is correct, I should have noticed them doubling in size over the course of the last five decades. No such effect has been observed. Just sayin.
Topic: 40 per cent of Australian women wear a bra with a cup size DD or bigger