One of the surprising silver linings of the pandemic: a national conversation about women, their boobs, and their bras. Articles on the topic have swirled for decades, but it took being locked down to see traction among news coverage of women's lack of coverage. And now that we're reemerging back into the world, these newly (un)sexy headlines have shifted from why women choose to go braless to why the bras that women choose tend to offer less - less wire, less binding, less push-up. This new-normal mainstream conversation about broadening variety among big busted options is nothing short of victory. But now that we're openly talking about DDs, can we also talk about AAAs?
 
One of the first physical manifestations of girl puberty is the emergence of breast buds: mini torpedo-shaped swellings about the size of a small stack of dimes that pop up beneath the nipples some time during grade school, cruelly more often on one side well before the other. A generation ago, breast buds tended to appear between the ages of 10 and 11, though there always existed a wide range of normal, so it wasn't uncommon to see a 9-year old with them or a 13-year old without. Today in the US, though, more than 50% of Gen Z females experience breast budding between 7 and 10. The rare bird story of the 1980s has become the norm. 
 
Breast buds are awkward, with their conspicuous appearance; and they're tender as all get out, as any young girl who's been elbowed in her newly budding chest will tell you. But breast buds are also sticking around a lot longer than they used to. Sure, some girls go from buds to full boob blossom in a year or two, just like the olden days, but the majority start sooner than their mothers’ ever did and linger through the stages of growth more slowly. All of puberty behaves taffy-like these days, launching earlier but ending no sooner for most, making the entire journey much longer. One big marker of that fact is the relative steadiness of the age at first period, still hovering around 12 years. So while Gen Xers got their boobs starting around age 10 and their periods a couple of years later, Gen Z is living the physical transformations of puberty for twice as long before the infamous first period arrives. 
 
What does any of this have to do with managing big busts? Everything, really. For starters, the obviousness of breast buds drives girls to want coverage. It's not that all girls want to hide them - in fact, when I am speaking to these kids in a medical office or in a classroom, many will tell me quite bluntly that they feel no shame. They just don't want people leering. It was tough enough managing that specific brand of attention in middle school... no third or fourth grader wants to deal with comments about her maturing body, let alone should be expected to know how. And then there's the sensory piece: breast buds can be super tender, not just when inadvertently colliding with a ball or a backpack but against a tee-shirt or sweater, too. 
 
The "bra" solutions offered to young girls on the front end of puberty - a group numbering at least 10 million in this country, and up to 20 million if you include females whose breasts have yet to take their full-adult form and shape - have been inadequate at best, and absurd in many instances. Traditional training bras took adult styles, shrunk them down, and sprinkled them with bows and lace. They are nearly impossible to find these days, and no one is mourning their loss. Newer solutions offer single- or double-ply "half tops," basically camisoles cut towards the bottom of the ribcage, with an anchoring piece of elastic to hold them in place but nothing to gently compress the emerging tissue. Or the opposite: a padded bra designed to hide buds by concealing them under faux bigger breasts. It's no wonder young girls have started wearing sports bras all day long because these garments pull across the chest, minimizing the appearance of new breasts. But this solution worries me because no one has studied the impact of binding new breast tissue as it is trying to grow, forcing it to develop against endless hours of heavy resistance. Will we see more cystic breast disease or increasingly dense breast tissue in these women as they age? I don’t know, but I spend my days writing, teaching, and reading about puberty, so when my own daughter went through it, I only ever let her wear a sports bra for sports. When she wanted something to wear for the rest of the hours in her day, there was nothing left to do but design one that would work.
 
All hail the conversation about body love and realistic solutions to age-old dilemmas. But let's be inclusive here. Body positivity, breast health, and all the rest deserve lots of conversation starting at the very front end of puberty. If we want to talk about breast confidence and comfort, let’s start talking to the girls who aren't anywhere near traditional bra sizing... yet.
 
And now, some links!
- Vaccine opponents have long shared stories intent upon sowing deep fears, but as this piece in Bloomberg points out, the folks who are supporting the science have got to get better at telling their truth: if you want to err on the side of caution, getting the vaccine is safer than getting COVID.  
 
- Rapid home tests are finally here thanks to recent FDA approval, but the biggest news is that they've been approved for asymptomatic screening. These tests look for coronavirus antigens, so they aren’t quite as good as the gold-standard PCR tests – which is why the approval comes with a recommendation to test several days in a row.  
 
- Having trouble understanding how vaccines work? @hotvickkrishna can explain it to you... even NPR was infected by his viral TikTok! 
 
- Youth sports are being linked to COVID outbreaks, especially in the face of new virus variants, but no one is sure whether it's the sports themselves, the close contacts on the court/field, or the carpooling and sleepovers that tend to happen before and after.
 
- If you're looking for something new in the world of science, beyond COVID that is, I've got three for you:
   1. The winners of the STAT madness contest.
   2. New cousins of CBD and THC called the minor cannabinoids.
   3. Jessica Lahey's powerful advice about how to lower your child’s risk for addiction.
 
HAHAHA Cassandra! Excellent April fools: