My growing body: Breasts and their purpose

Puberty is the time of many changes, and for girls one of those changes is they develop breasts.  Many teenagers worry about their breasts not developing early enough or at the same pace as their friends.  For them, developing (or the lack of it) creates anxiety and stress.  Yet for other girls, when their breasts start to grow, it makes them feel embarrassed and uncomfortable about their own body.  They may not want to undress in front of other girls or even their own mom.

And it's not just the teenagers.  Studies show that about 8 women out of 10 in the US are not happy with their breasts.  Because of that, many women then want to have breast implants, which are artificial gel-filled pockets that are put under the skin.  They make breasts look very big.  For example, many models and actors you see in TV and in ads have these man-made implants to make their breasts look bigger.  This can make them not able to breastfeed, and many breast implants rupture over time and need to be removed.

But what causes teens and adult women alike to worry over their breast size and shape?  The answer is laid out on the billboards, magazine ads, and television.  Practically every single woman you see in media and in advertisements is extremely slim and has huge breasts.  Women and girls in the United States are bombarded by those pictures all day long, so it is no wonder most girls and women therefore start believing (at least subconsciously) it is the ideal form of female body and that they should strive for it too.

But those models have had everything possible done to make their breasts appear bigger: first of all many of them get breast implants and use pads in bras.  Then after that, the photographer can use a special lense to make one body part show up bigger than the rest, and if need be, the photograps in advertisements are retouched and made to look just right with the help of computer.  IT IS NOT REAL!

Media also always depicts breasts as something to be hidden, and something men and boys supposedly want to see.  That is probably what your mother also believes.  However, things are different in many other countries and cultures around the world.  In Europe women can walk on topless beaches, and men don't look at their breasts with special interest.  It is a 'no big deal' type of thing.  Seeing a breastfeeding mom does not cause people to become 'offended' or embarrassed.  In some cultures, like native Indians or most Africans, women are or were topless on everyday basis.  To them, breasts are like elbows or ankles to us: just a body part that everybody has, nothing that special, nothing to hide about.

Just think if in today's world all women suddenly covered their noses with some kind of piece of fabric, just leaving the bottom open for breathing.  Then soon everybody would be curious about noses and would want to see a bare nose.  Men, especially, would want to 'peek in' because they would nromally never see a woman's nose, whereas all women would at least see their own.

But we know there's nothing about noses that would make them especially interesting body parts for men and boys to look at.  Some noses are big, some are small, some are more curved this way or the other way, but they all are just plain ol' noses. Everybody has seen plenty of them and men don't think anything special about seeing a woman's nose.

Maybe you think my illustration is silly.  But it's not that far-fetched.  It is happening EVEN NOW.  In muslim countries women are required to cover their whole face with a vail, except for eyes.  A woman's face (including the nose) is a taboo.  Men can't see it, and are then extremely curious.  Whatever you make to be a taboo, then becomes a source of curiosity and obsession.

The purpose of the nose is to be a passageway for the air we breathe in, to filter impurities out, and to be a house for the sense of smell.  Do you know what is the purpose of female breast?  If you have studied breast anatomy, you know that inside, breast is filled with milk lobules that produce milk, and milk ducts that carry the milk to the nipple.  Then there is fatty and connective tissue to fill the breast, and that's it.  Breasts are intended to make milk for the baby that the woman has born into this world.  It's that simple.

Many people argue at this and say that breasts have a dual function: being a sexual organ AND a milk-machine for the baby.  But anatomically or physiologically there is nothing in the breast to make it a part of human procreation process.  It's just the image created by television and magazines that almost everybody in the USA believes.

Now, breasts are of course a very feminine body part.  Just like long hair and curved hips, they signal that a person is of the female sex.  It is just fine and good if men see female breasts as feminine, as something that emphasizes that the person is mature and capable of feeding her children as nature intended.  Breastfeeding is a wonderful and beautiful process of nourishing and comforting your child with your own body.  There is nothing wrong if men and boys appreciate breasts for their real purpose and see them as something making the person very much female, a woman, a MOTHER who cares about her children.

Breasts of practically all shapes and sizes can breastfeed just fine, because the amount of fatty tissue in breast has nothing to do with the milk making.  Even women with totally flat chest can breastfeed.  They just didn't have the fat and connective tissue develop as most women do.  In fact, I'm sury you've seen pictures of dogs and cats nursing their babies, the little puppies or kittens.  They just have protruding nipples, and the milk making apparatus is just underneath the skin without any big mount outside.  But then take for example the cow.  She has a big huge udder with several teats for her one calf to suck on.

When it comes to animals, everybody thinks that breastfeeding is just the normal way to go, nothing to hide about.  If women in United States and other western societies influenced by it would breastfeed more openly in public, it would help so much to do away with this secrecy and hiding aspect of breasts.  Kids and teenagers growing up NEED to see the real function of breasts!  If they don't see breastfeeding moms, they might get the impression that bottle-feeding is the 'normal' way or that there is something 'bad' and 'dirty' about breastfeeding.  Nothing could be further from truth!  Tons of scientific studies show how bottle-feeding is not as good as breast-feeding: it makes babies more sick, less intelligent, more prone to die etc.

As a young unmarried girl, try to see your breasts, however much they have or have not developed, simply as a future source of milk and comfort for your baby.  It won't matter what shape or size they are at all!  And it won't matter if they develop now or when you're 20 years old - because you only really need them after you've first been pregnant and had a baby!

See also:

Normal breast development and teenagers worries
More questions and answers about breast development

Sources and resources:

Breasts and self-image by Mary D. Brown.

Body Image & the Media... What's the connection?
The Media trends from 1890's till today. What all is done to make the images in the media to appear flawless.

An interview with Sharleen Jonasson, the author of "It's My Body and I'll Cry If I Want To".
"I was recently in the U.K., and I took the opportunity to peruse a few British editions of magazines on every North American news stand. ... One of the first things I noticed was a different attitude toward nudity. Take, for example, an ad I must've seen a hundred times in women's magazines here, where a model stands, presumably in front of a mirror, with nothing on but a man's shirt that is open but covering most of her breasts. In the British version of the same ad, the model's breasts are fully exposed. (Do we have a no-nipple policy over here?)
Something else I noticed was a photo spread of naked women, a regular-readers-of-the-magazine kind of group ordinary women, naked, women with breasts and buttocks and waists of varying sizes and shapes, thighs with dimples it was startling! And why? Because we almost never see bodies of ordinary women in the pages of magazines. Full frontals and rear-views of these women, pages and pages of women posing happily naked, not looking a bit apologetic. The purpose of this realistic nudity? To show examples of different body types. ...
But the thing was, I was amazed at how, immediately, I felt better about my own body. Because I defy any woman to look at a model in a magazine and not, on some level, compare herself to that model."

Their Bodies, Ourselves: Mothers and Daughters Looking Good
How to help your daughter to develop a healthy body image.

Body Image & Advertising
Article with lots of statistics figures relating to body image