I’m a bra whisperer – here’s the red flag signs your bra is damaging your health
BUYING a new bra is either one of two things – an inconvenience, or a special treat.
But a bra fitter has warned women to buy new bras more often, or else they are putting themselves at risk of health hazards.
A shocking 95 per cent of women in the UK are wearing the wrong bra size, according to research seen by The Sun.
Brarsista and Evenly did bra fittings of 500 women and found that they tend to be wearing bras that are up to two band sizes and three cup sizes too small.
Some 90 per cent of the women admitted they didn’t know their bra size.
Bella Ngo, CEO of Brarista and chief bra fitter at Evenly, warns there are health implications of wearing an ill-fitting bra.
Posture can suffer because your bra band should be supporting the breasts, and if it isn’t, it may cause you to hunch.
Bella likens the band of the bra to the waistband of a large backpack – it’s designed to distibute weight to relieve the shoulders.
Bella says with an ill-fitting bra: “Your performance in sports is reduced, your confidence is affected and clothes will not work as well on your body.”
Perhaps one of the most troubling side effects is that wearing the wrong bra can cause irreversible premature sagging, Bella says.
Kate Taylor, founder of Evenly – the first company to offer bra inserts for women with asymmetrical breasts – warns of pain in the back, neck or shoulder.
She explains: “Women don’t realise that a lot of pain that they’re experiencing can be caused by their bra and may put it down to hunching.
“Your bra distributes the weight of both your breasts across your chest and your back. So if you have asymmetry, your bra can’t do that properly [if it’s the wrong size].
“It’s obviously being drawn more to one side by the weight of your bigger breast and that leads to a lot of back pain, shoulder pain, posture issues.
“Breast asymmetry is so common. Upwards of 90 per cent of women have asymmetry but think they’re the only ones struggling with it.
“A lot of women, if they have asymmetry, wear a bra that is too small that fits their smaller breast.”
How often you should change your bra
When was the last time you bought a new bra, let alone had a bra fitting?
Bella says women should be going for a bra fitting “once a year at the minimum”.
She says: “The reason why bra fitting has been always put off by a lot of people is because it’s extremely inconvenient for people to get fitted.
“Brarista offers online bra fitting so you can just get everything done from home.
“On average, a woman’s breasts change shape and size every six to 12 months.
“So whenever you feel that your weight is fluctuating or you’re going through a major event like pregnancy, nursing, or surgery, it’s important that we people check, make time to get checked again.
“I think bra fitting should be a routine. If you go to see your dentist once every six months, the same routine should happen for bra fitting, once a year at the minimum.”
Kate agrees, saying: “Even if you’re in the perfect size to start with, if you wear the same bra for a year or more and you washed it regularly and you know, it’s probably is starting to lose its elasticity.”
It won’t just be your health that benefits, but your appearance, too.
Bella says: “It’s incredible the amount of times we’ve seen people say to us ‘Oh my god, it looks like I have a waist now’. Or, ‘I cannot believe that I don’t need to go through breast surgery’.
“With the right kind of bra you can actually make your breasts go up and out in the way that you would have with breast surgery.”
Signs your bra is the wrong fit
The experts reveal the key signs your bra is the wrong fit, and you need a new one to fully support your boobs…
1. Straps are slipping
Constantly pulling up your straps?
It’s something Bella hears all the time, and she says it’s not simply because your bra is ‘too big’.
“Actually, if your straps become a lot looser over time or throughout the day, it’s more of an indicator that your bra is a bit too old,” she says.
“The fabric has worn out so the slider – the bits for you to tighten up to strap – doesn’t doesn’t hold on the fabric the same way.
“So that’s usually a sign that you should be buying a new bra.”
2. Boobs seem ‘smaller’
If your boobs appear to be smaller in your bra, this is another sign that your bra is the wrong size and your boobs are not supported.
Bella says: “When you wear a T-shirt, and the outline of the cup sticks out, people tend to think that the cups are too big for them, but actually that’s the band being too big, never the cups.
“Most women in the UK wear two band sizes too big and three cup sizes too small. When you go down a band, make sure you go up in the cup.”
For example, if you’re wearing a 34C that is poor-fitting, you may need a 32D.
Kate says: “If you want the same cup volume, if you’re going to adjust the band size, then you need to also adjust the cup size, too.
“A lot of people don’t realise that the cup size is only relative to the band size. If you have a D cup that means nothing unless you say the band size in relation because a 42D cup is a lot bigger than a 24D cup.”
3. On tightest hook
When you first buy a bra, you should judge whether it fits based on the loosest hook available, Bella says.
The bra is going to get older and more stretched, in which case, you will need the tighter hooks over time.
Bells says: “If you’ve been fitted properly before, by the time that you’ve got to the tightest hook, and you find that it is getting looser, that is usually the indicator that it’s time for a new bar or bar fitting.”
Kate says 80 per cent of bra support comes from the band.
“If it is too baggy, it’s not doing anything for you. You might feel comfortable because it doesn’t feel tight.
“It shouldn’t be so tight that it’s digging in, but it needs to be tight enough that it can hold parallel and not ride up at the back or stretch.”