“Knockers!” “Jugs!” “Fun bags!” “Sweater puppies!” Sitting in the darkened audience at the talent show my friend put on as a fundraiser for breast cancer research, I listened as all my friends called out their favorite euphemisms for boobs. I wanted to contribute – what’s more fun than sitting in a big room talking girlie bits with all your best girls? (And no men, we weren’t wearing panties and having pillow fights.) – but the pressure mounted as all the good ones were getting taken. Looking down for inspiration, it came to me: “Rocks in socks!” I blurted out. Silence. Then my friend next to me giggled, “Really??” I stood firm in my answer. “Indeed.”
Nursing four babies has not been kind to me in the chest department. Sure I look amazing as long as I’m slinging the milk shakes but as soon as my drive-in becomes take-out only, I end up worse than before I began. And I’m not the only one. Plastic surgery is a topic that comes up among the Gym Buddies from time to time – it did this very morning in fact! (See, now don’t you wish you came and worked out with us?) While there are a couple Buddies holding out for a tummy tuck and one who wants a reduction, the rest of us, if money grew on trees, would get the girls fixed.
Part of it is because while we can lose the baby weight with nutrition and exercise, we can never fix the saggy bits and we’d just like to have our old selves back. But part of it – the part we don’t talk about very much – is based on a fundamental unrealistic yet oddly pervasive belief in the fitness world: that you can be very lean and still have very big boobs.
Reader Juni, obviously tuned in to the Gym-Buddy wavelength, sent me this question:
“So I buy just about every fitness magazine on the market and I gotta say that it makes me sad that I find it quite rare if I see even ONE model without breast implants. It’s such a strange contradiction, you know???? I mean, I do get it, you have a low body fat percentage and you likely have what I like to call “Boobinis”. Yet, as a women who works out to feel strong and happy with her capable body it makes me sad to see this and conflicted…. “
Juni makes an excellent point (and also “boobinis” is hilarious – I’m totally stealing that one from now on!) In case you missed 8th grade health class, breasts are largely made up of fat. So if you lean way out, reason stands that your chest will disappear just like the fat off your stomach. This is a conundrum for fitness models. Traditionally female “fitness models” had a very specific look, something akin to this:
Body fat low enough to show 6-pack abs yet still enough on top to fill out a sports bra with cleavage!
While it’s no secret that in the larger world of movie stars, Maxim and reality TV shows stick thin with grapefruit halves is highly desirable, you’d think that in the health and fitness realm with its emphasis on muscle mass over Barbie limbs that we’d get some slack in the chestal department. Not so. If anything, breast implants seem more prevalent in fitness modelling than typical women’s modelling.
While some fitness professionals, like the ever-controversial
Zuzana of bodyrock.tv, are unapologetic about their augmented assets, others are starting to buck the trend. Top fitness model Kim Strother (if you have read any health or fitness mag in the last two years I can guarantee you’ve seen her, even if you don’t know her as anything other than “girl demonstrating ab crunches on large exercise ball”) talks openly about
losing jobs because she refuses to enlarge her athletic chest.
Self magazine’s features director/fitness Meagan Murphy
calls Strother the “new-school archetype” saying that she is “healthy, strong and aspirational.” Murphy adds, “The supermodel won the genetic lottery. The fitness model worked damn hard for that body, and you can tell.” She even points out that Strother differs from traditional female models in that most of the sample clothes sent for photo shoots are a size medium to accommodate her athletic build.
Kim Strother, full-time fitness model. Image from Slate.com
Normally “athletic build” is seen as a derogatory term – I remember the first time a gymnastics coach told me I had “athletic thighs” I cried for a week and went on a crash diet – but these days some fitness magazines want a model that can do more than just look pretty in booty shorts. They need someone strong enough to hold a plank in the sand for five minutes while wardrobe and lighting are adjusted, someone who can jump 83 times in the air to get the perfect “spontaneous” shot, someone who can demonstrate proper squatting form. And with online video complements to articles, that is getting harder and harder to fake.
Personally I hope that Strother is the wave of the future, if only for the fact that with as many kids as I have there’s no way I’ll ever be able to afford implants (and also, did you know you have to replace them every decade or so? A little too high maintenance for this surgery-squeamish girl!). On the other hand, I had two mommy friends get implants just this last week and they’re super happy with the results (or at least they will be when the swelling goes down.)
What do you think – is the fake boobs/tiny figure still the gold standard or do you think smaller boobs are the next big thing? Are implants a way to restore you back to you and increase confidence or are they just more evidence of the unrealistic standard women’s bodies are judged by? Do you have a favorite term for your boobs?
PS. Check out Slate.com’s entire
fitness issue for more interesting stuff like this – thanks to the reader who tipped me off to this! I wish I could remember who but I’m totally having a brain fart – leave me a comment so I can give you proper credit!
Written with love by Charlotte Hilton Andersen for The Great Fitness Experiment (c) 2011. If you enjoyed this, please check out my new book The Great Fitness Experiment: One Year of Trying Everything
for more of my crazy antics and uncomfortable over-shares!
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Hello! I discovered fantastic good tips 🙂 Keep it up!
For what it’s worth, as a man and a husband, I have wondered this for years about the fitness industry. How can we reconcile the idea of “you should be fit, you deserve to be healthy, you can work hard to make your body strong and beautiful” with “you need to stuff a gallon of silicone into your tatas”?
I think this is 100% definitely linked to porn culture as men come to expect women to have unnaturally large breasts as they use pornography more and more. Why do I think this? Well, it’s not like fitness models are just getting implants to put them back at a regular size. In other words, a girl with 34B breasts leans way down and gets “boobinis” as the author notes. When she gets breast implants, you never see her going back to just 34B, you see her pumping them suckers up to 36C or 38D or some teen-boy’s wet-dream fetish preference. Why? Why is it that 99.999% of fitness models have big, swollen, rock-hard boobehs? I can’t imagine it’s because they want to have a more difficult time squeezing into a jog bra or because they think having breasts that feel like tire rubber is sexy. I assume it’s just measuring up to an industry standard, and I feel that this is clearly not a standard set BY women FOR women.
Call me a feminist I guess (and thank you for the compliment!), but I feel that if we’re discussing WOMEN’s beauty standards, then WOMEN should have the majority of the input on what shapes those standards. I recognize that statistically most women are heterosexual and so at some level attractiveness panders to men, but it shouldn’t pander at the level of fetish/fantasy because that results in some extremely unhealthy practices that rob women of their dignity and safety.
So in conclusion, smaller breasts should become the industry standard. And if you think women with small breasts can’t be attractive, you’ve clearly never met any.
Have to be honest, the “fitness industry” produces body types that are not really ideal. I understand that the goal to some degree is to present people pushing themselves to the limits, but the result is not what normal people want.
As a guy, I think make body builders look like cartoons. Like the Incredible Hulk. And in many cases you know that they used steroids or other performance enhancing drugs to get there. I want to be muscular and have some definition, and I think that’s what women like a guy to look like, but I don’t think that too much bulk looks good. It doesn’t look normal.
So when it comes to women, as a guy, I think fitness models often don’t look very good. For me, the ideal woman in terms of physical appearance is healthy, not overweight, but also not visibly muscular. They need almost no bulk, and not that much definition. They just need to get rid of flab. Natural and healthy are the two words I would use to describe the perfect female physique.
So the issue here is a result of women pushing themselves to levels of body fat that aren’t really attractive, and are frankly kind of masculine, and then trying to “re-feminize” themselves through plastic surgery. That’s the problem.
Simply put, I’d much rather have a Hawaiian Tropic model (without implants, granted many of them also have them) than most fitness models. I don’t want to see her abs or ribs too much. I don’t want her to have bulky arms and legs with a lot of definition. It doesn’t look attractive.
Just being honest.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment about this subject. I’ve been exposed to the
idea of fitness & health my whole life, since my father was a world-champion
weightlifter( power-lifting,body-building, and Olympic-lifting), since childhood
in the 50’s and 60’s,… before ‘Arnold’, ‘Mr. Olympia’,.. or the growth of Female-BB,
and it’s ‘offspring’ (fitness, figure, and physique). I’ve always ha extreme interest in
the athletic female-form. I was excited to see the beginnings of the acceptance of the
‘strong, more muscular-shaped athletic women’. Before that I could only see the type of
female body I liked with dancers (ballet), gymnasts (remember Olga Korbut?),.. track or other athletes. I had ALWAYS rejected the notion that a woman’s ‘breasts’ were what made her ‘female’ or ‘feminine’,.. and these had to be large and PROTRUDE greatly,… the bigger — the better. But this notion had always contradicted my sense of ‘health-and-fitness’? I always saw the human body,..and the woman’s body, AS A ‘WHOLE’ BODY. .. NOT as a couple of ‘protrusions’ mounted on insignificant walking appendages (legs),.. or as some of the 50’s car models, with front-bumpers that looked-like today’s ‘breast-implants’,… designed to draw some men’s attention to these primal-protrusions.
The reality is that NOT ‘ALL’ MEN are primarily attracted to women’s breast as the
primary source of femininity, or sexual attractiveness! And neither should ‘big
breasts’it be the primary concern of any woman’s self-image! Just as with all ‘interest’
regarding form-and-attractiveness,.. or ideas of beauty,.. EACH PERSON IS UNIQUE,.. even
within the parameters of male-female attraction
I particularly find a woman with large, MUSCULAR, diamond or heart-shaped CALVES, combined
with lean-but-not-skinny,..(not bulky or ‘massive’),.. but with an athletic physique
EXTREMELY attractive, and beautiful,.. in the same ‘sense’ that some men find
large breasts attractive.
I’m not saying that large female breasts a bad if they are ‘natural’ (unless there is
a health or medical issue),.. only they are NOT important to my interest in a woman,
or her ‘femininity’. Just as a ‘big nose’ on a man may-or-may-not be important
to a woman’s interest in a man? It depends on ‘other’ factors,.. and the WHOLE of the man,
both physically AND spiritually!
THERE IS NO IDEAL FORM FOR ALL PEOPLE!
Especially, when trying to CREATE A FALSE IMAGE which is ‘contrary’ to the woman’s
natural attributes, and ‘whole-body’ form.
SO, breast-implants actually strike me as unnatural,. unattractive,.. and unhealthy.
Therefore, it’s ironic that a pursuit which is ‘supposed-to’ enhance and promote
‘health’, and whole-body-fitness,.. as an ‘ideal’ of beauty,…. has skidded so
far off-the-rails in opposition to it’s own concept!
As far as MY opinion,.. breast-implants ‘contradict’ the notion of fitness & health.
The cultural-criteria is corrupted. We all should stand along-side of female
fitness-athletes against this corrupt notion of femininity!
Ironicaclly, before the 1990’s the strength, fitness, and muscularity of female athletes
was not as problematic as some might believe. But steroid-use brought forward questions
of acceptability of extreme women’s muscularity and ‘femininity’? But it wasn’t the
‘muscle’ that was the issue, as much as chemical-tampering with HORMONAL changes.
By that time Steroid-use in men’s BB was already a big concern. Not only with BB’s but
in professional and amateur sports,.. and even in the Olympics.
The concern was that drug-induced-hormonal-changes were dangerously unhealthy. Men
who used were physically developing ‘female’ characteristics, and women who used them
developed male characteristics. It was a ‘Jekyl-Hyde’ scenario.
But rather than understanding that many women are ‘naturally’ more muscular, or can
develop more muscle ‘naturally’, depending on their genetics,…the heads of the
BB/Fitness organizations panicked and didn’t let these things take a natural course in
the culture, for fear of losing money in the rising industry.
It became a ‘political-economic-decision’, as Ben Weider, and others decided based on
‘their own perceptions’of public acceptability,…not on facts or truth,…
but in the interest of economic expediency,.. in other-words, to ‘make-money’.
It has proven to be short-sighted, and detrimental to fitness women, as well as to
the culture.
I much prefer the ‘old-school’ approach to ‘Strength & Health’,,..by weight-training and
fitness-founders, like Bob Hoffman,…. as opposed to the questionable exploitation tactics
of Joe and Ben Weider,
Of course, most people haven’t heard of Bob Hoffman (or ‘York’ barbells),.. and other
‘Strongman’ (and ‘Strong-woman’) icons,.. but I grew up with his influence,.. through
my father. There have always been fit, strong and attractive women in human history,
and in American history. And large ‘breasts’ were never the ONLY criteria for determining a
woman’s attractiveness, beauty, or value!
Most important to me is the idea of NATURAL HEALTH, beauty, and Strength.
Along with the gratuitous, ‘breast-implants’,.. I’m repulsed by tattoos
(another corrupt, post-modern notion of ‘beauty’) ,.. and the ridiculous
‘over-tanned’ look,.. usually it’s just an ‘applied’, and overly-dark fake tan which
supposedly ‘brings-out’ the muscle-shape better,… but it just looks like ‘clown-paint’
to me.
OK,..that’s my take. I just hope that more health-and-fitness women will begin a
cultural ‘revolt’ against the false notion that ‘FEMININITY IS FOUND IN FALSE-BREASTS’…
And true health-and-beauty and does not equate to ignorant, prurient-notions, and
mis-perceptions of femininity,.. or how many false-images can be exchanged for money.
There’s already an industry which appeals to that corrupt understanding of human sexuality,..
….it’s called the ‘porn’ industry.
Yes, it makes a lot of money,.. but it has very little to do with truth or love,…
and it DIMINISHES THE CULTURE.
For me bodybuilding and fitness is a sport. Not a beauty pageant. In this sport you cannot expect women please your eyes as a Hawaiian swimsuit girl does, because it is not what she is going for. The beauty is in diversity. There is not one “way” to look. It isn’t even about looks. It is about the ability of someone shaping their bodies through the means of weight lifting and dieting. It is only for a period of about 3 to 6 months.The lean, masculine looks only last thorough the competition cycle. After that these women return to normal body fat percentages with a softer look that is still athletic and toned. I guess I can only speak for myself, but I didn’t enter into fitness competition to please anyone’s eyes. I do it, because I have a natural talent, and flow in this area. I love my strength, agility and proud of what I accomplished through very hard work, Which is not necessarily a stereotype for attractive women in society. I do that in the mirror at home, off season. I do not have breast implants, but I do think in some cases it can bring balance back to those who are just lack body fat in that area. Regardless of fitness level. Plenty of inactive women gets breast implants. It is a sport like any other and just as a runner doesn’t compete solely for the medal, a fitness athlete doesn’t compete solely for the look. The joy is in the journey and in the individual reasons behind someone’s desire to take their interest, hobbies or passions to the next level. I understand it is not for everyone but it doesn’t have to be. There is plenty to go around for all of us to chose from. If you don’t like masculine, over conditioned women, that is ok. It is perfectly appropriate. If your are women and love the feeling fitness and lifting can give you go for it. There is only one life to live, let us love and support each other in enjoying it to the fullest. We don’t have to give so much negative focus on what we think others should or should not do. Let each of us focus on what we like and be non judgmental to others. It is ok. to be different. There is about 7.4 billion people on Earth. I think there is plenty of room for the Hawaiian model and the female bodybuilder and all in between. Best regards to you all, I am heading for an awesome leg workout to the gym. God bless.