Female Body Image: What is the Ideal Breast Size? Personal Perception and Media Messages Versus Reality, Part 1

"In general, though, our society does tend to place more value on big breasts. Go through a day in our world - watch television, pick up a women's magazine, go to the movies, walk down the street. Guaranteed you'll see more big breasts than you'll know what to do with." From the book Breasts: Our Most Public Private Parts by Meema Spadola.

Are large breasts as common in the media and life as Ms. Spadola suggests, or is this merely the perception of a woman with average sized (34B) breasts? Are female celebrities more likely to have breasts that are above average in size? Are you required to have large breasts to be considered sexy? The advertising and news media seems to suggest these statements are true. The media uses women with medium to large breasts to sell merchandise and increase television ratings. This implies men and women prefer breasts of this size. It also suggests that women with small breasts could never attract anyone's attention, or so women with small breasts are often led to believe. Could Jessica Alba's image be used to capture people's attention, or would she always lose out to women like Keeley Hazell?

Average Bra Size

What size bra does the average woman wear? According to the book How Big is Big: The Book of Sexual Measurements, published in 1982, meaning the numbers are a bit outdated, the percentage of women who wear each cup size is given in the following table.

Cup Size	Percent of Women
A	15
B	44
C	28
D	10
Other	3

At that time, the average bra size was a 36B. Many articles on the internet say the most common bra size is now a 36C*. Some bra manufacturers are reported to be saying this, but they are tight lipped about their sales figures. I wasn't able to locate a scientific reference that substantiates this claim. Today, women are more likely to be overweight, so you would expect the average cup size, and band size, to have increased at least a little. For now, lets assume the percentages given above are somewhat close to what women wear today.

Even if an increasing number of women are buying bras with a C cup that doesn't necessarily mean women in general have larger breasts, as 70-80 percent of women are reported to be wearing the wrong size bra. Women frequently buy the size and style of bra they want to wear, not the one they should wear. Women who wear bras with a C cup may simply buy greater numbers of bras than those who buy other cup sizes. Women with above average sized breasts often have a hard time finding suitable bras and may have very limited options available to them, without the luxury of coordinating them with several different outfits. I have also heard that women with small breasts could be equally limited in their choices, especially given they probably don't want to be seen shopping for a bra in the little girl's section of their local store. It is also possible that increasing numbers of women with small breasts don't wear a bra, so they aren't buying them, or they are wearing them less often and buying fewer of them. Many of today's tops have built in shaping and support, which may lessen the need for women to wear a bra. There are many reasons why bras with a C cup may out sell the other sizes, and women having larger breasts is just one of them.

Resource: Bra suppliers AAA to JJ Cup

Celebrity Bra Sizes

What size bra does the average celebrity wear? I located several web sites that provide a list of female celebrities and their respective bra size. I sorted the celebrities by the cup size they wear. Based on that data, I was able to come up with the percentage of celebrities that wear each cup size, based on 557 celebrities.

Cup Size	A	B	C	D	DD	F+
# of Celebrities	33	253	173	74	16	8
Percentage	6	45	31	13	3	1

If we compare the cup sizes for women in general to those who are celebrities, see the table shown below, we can see celebrities may have slightly larger breasts on average, but they don't have significantly larger breasts. While it appears celebrities are much less likely to wear a bra with an A cup, we don't know if this is actually true. Perhaps celebrities with small breasts don't want to admit to how small their breasts really are, wanting to live up to their media image. Several of the celebrities are reported to wear a larger cup size than I would have guessed.

Cup Size	Percent of Women	Percent of Celebrities	Difference
A	15	6	-9
B	44	45	-1
C	28	31	+3
D	10	13	+3
Other	3	4	+1

MrSkin.com lists 2,233 celebrities with small, 8,277 with medium, 2,630 with large, and 144 with "Jamambo" size breasts. Based on a total of 13,284 celebrities this equates to 17% with small, 62% with medium, 20% with large, and 1% with very large breasts. Since they are grouping women based on the size of their breasts, rather than their reported bra size, we don't know which cup sizes are included in each group. Even so, this information suggests my data doesn't accurately represent celebrities, which is good news for women with small breasts. Based on these numbers, celebrities with small breasts are almost equal in number to those with large breasts. It also says they are just as likely to have small breasts as women in the general population.

Note: The greater the number of adult film stars included in the celebrity populations, the more the bra sizes will be skewed from real to fanciful proportions.

Sexy Celebrities

FHM magazine ran a survey to determine the sexiest woman in the world for 2007. Here is a list of the women who placed in the top 10, and their respective bra size.

1. Jessica Alba - 34B
2. Keeley Hazell - 32E
3. Eva Longoria - 34A
4. Adriana Lima - 34C
5. Scarlett Johansson - 34C
6. Hayden Panettiere - 32B
7. Cheryl Tweedy - 36C
8. Angelina Jolie - 36C
9. Emily Scott - 34C
10. Elisha Cuthbert - 34C

Eva Longoria

Jessica Alba was considered the sexiest woman in the world in 2007, by participants in FHM's survey, which resulted in eight million votes being cast. (2008 Survey Results: #1 Megan Fox 34C, #2 Jessica Alba 34B, #3 Keeley Hazell 32E) This isn't a scientific survey, but the results must hold some merit. How is it possible that a woman with average sized breasts is considered sexier than a woman with large breasts? The third ranked woman, Eva Longoria, had even smaller breasts than Jessica, yet she beat out 97 other women. Eva was the most popular woman in Maxim magazine's 2005 and 2006 top 100 list, losing out to Lindsay Lohan (36B) in 2007. In October 2007, Esquire magazine voted Charlize Theron (36B) the "sexiest woman alive" for 2007. Doesn't this provide evidence to prove that women with small breasts can be and are considered attractive by a sizeable percentage of the male population?

Admittedly, women with C cup sized breasts were more likely to make the top ten, but this could have been a chance coincidence, or maybe not. If large breasts are truly considered sexier, wouldn't there be more women in the top ten that wore a D cup or larger, especially if a C cup is merely average sized by today's standards? What if breast size isn't the primary consideration that determines whether men find a woman sexy? As a whole, women with C cup sized breasts, assuming they are the most common size, would have a greater likelihood of having all the characteristics men consider sexy in a woman. Based on the percentages, there are simply fewer women with larger and smaller breasts for men to choose from. Perhaps the top ten list is the result of the laws of averages rather than any one single physical attribute. Rather than any one of these ten women defining what is sexy, all of them together represent sexiness. An even more inclusive definition of sexiness would include all the women of the world.

It is important to note that none of the women in the FHM survey received 100% of the vote, which means men have different ideas about what is considered sexy in a woman. One hundred women were included in the survey, so presumably each one is considered attractive by some percentage of men. Jessica may have beat Keeley by 1 or 1 million votes, we simply don't know. Something that is hard to convince women of is the fact that they will never be considered sexy by "everyone" they meet, regardless of their weight, height, the size of their breasts, etc. You can have surgery to transform yourself into a living Barbie doll, and you still wont be considered attractive by every man or woman in the world. Mister or Miss Perfect Match doesn't necessarily like large or small breasts, as they may not have a preference regarding breast size.

Continue to Part 2

Quotes:

"Our average bra size has swelled from a 34B to a 36C — maybe even a 36D, says Macy's "bra lady" herself, body consultant Jane Dursteler." Source