Everyone on the internet is a rare, perfect gem. Live with it.
Me too. And I’d rather have a smaller chest. I actually like a flatter body than the one I have aesthetically.
I’ve been thinking. As far as names for sexy big mamas are concerned. I like Zaftig and Rubenesque and all that, but it sounds too nerdy. It has to be something that is catchy.
Women tend to think if you are curvy (have some boobs and have a smaller waist than hips) you’re an ‘hourglass’. In reality these features are found in a majority of women because that’s what estrogens do. Most women are much, much curvier than men, both front and back view and side-view, regardless of weight. But few have a waist 10" or more smaller than hips and bust which are equal in circumference at the widest point, which is the technical definition of an ‘hourglass’.
I’m really interested in female bodies and in fashion, so I’ve put a lot of thought/research into this. I’m sure many disagree with me but I think it does us all more favors if we admit that there are a lot of different bodies out there, we don’t all need to be ‘hourglasses’.
Yeah, my measurements are (actual numbers hidden to protect the, uh, “zaftig”)
x bust, x-10 waist, x+4 hips.
That is not by any definition hourglass and when I stand naked in front of the mirror (an act for which btw I think I deserve a Congressional Medal of Honor) and my hips cry out to heaven to please be relieved of unfair burden Lawd Have Mercy, it’s clear to the universe that I am not an hourglass.
But my skinny minny friend tells me that to make me feel better. And then when I point out that I’m not, she goes into the, “but you have such great skin” spiel.
Skinny bitch. (J/K, I love her :))
Yeah, mine legitimately don’t change. I’ve lost 30-40 lbs over the last 6 months and while my band size has shrunk down a bit, the actual meat of my boobs hasn’t changed at all (I’m like a poet with my fancy language). Instead of wearing my bras on the loosest hook, I now hook them in a little tighter-- but the cup size fits the same.
Snippity snip.
This is more or less how I am and I can’t go anywhere dressed up in tight clothes without someone commenting about what a perfect hour glass shape my body is. I’m a fatty, so I draw attention to myself by dressing sexier than a lot of big girls dress, so that might explain the comments. I linked to this picture of myself in a thread the other day, but it gives a good idea of my body shape. While I am technically bigger on bottom (and it’s exaggerated a bit there because I’m popping my hip out), I suppose I don’t consider myself pear shaped. To me, pear shaped are the women who are waaay bigger on the bottom. Like, if I dressed the ways that are suggested for pear shaped women in magazines, I’d look super duper dumpy. Now, maybe that’s because I’m right on the line between hourglass and pear, but I suppose my point is that while I can understand sticking to strict guidelines, when it comes to fashion, there’s a little wiggle room between the areas. I’m technically a pear, but I’m not exceptionally bottom heavy (especially because while I do have big hips, my legs and thighs aren’t particularly heavy). This chick is a lot more like what I think of when I think of pear shaped. Or those women you see at the mall who are a size 8 on top and a size 18 on the bottom.
This is a huge issue for me right now; I’ve lost some weight recently, and I’m not going to be able to wear any bra I find in a normal store much longer because while my band size is decreasing, my boob size is not. I’m wearing ill-fitting 36 DDDs right now, and the band is kind of too big, but if I go down to 34s the cups aren’t big enough. I have a feeling the boobs are going to stay until almost the very end if I keep losing fat, because when my mother lost weight, she didn’t lose boob size at all until she was at the low- normal end of the BMI scale.
When I gain weight, though, it tends to be in my ass first (and comes off there first, too).
DiosaBellissima, you look smashing in that pic! As for what the woman’s magazines say - they are mostly idiots, because most of us are in the middle ground of a body type rather than at the extreme end like, say, Kelly Clarkson (now she is one pear-y pear). God forbid I try to ‘camouflage’ my hips or ‘balance’ my shoulders by wearing pads, I would look awful.
At 31-23-34 with broad shoulders, I have a X-shaped body and often get called ‘curvy’, but my weight distribution is emphatically pear. Even though I’m pretty proportionate and wear the same size in in tops and bottoms.
There are extreme pears, but really any woman who is more than 2" bigger in the hips than the bust and carries her weight on her lower body as opposed to her middle is a pear shape. So, most women. Most women’s clothes are built to accommodate this shape as well, so women with, say, small hips/straight waists/big busts are really hard to fit, ditto for true hourglasses with a bust just as big as their hips - they usually have to size up just to fit their boobs.
Thank you :D. I think another reason that the magazine articles about pears don’t work for me is that I don’t want to minimize my hips or ass- I think they’re great! That dress I’m wearing in the picture? Due to the horizontal bandaging of the fabric and super tightness, it definitely makes my hips look much bigger than my waist, but I think that’s hot! So, maybe because I don’t buy into the whole idea that I should be hiding my body that those magazine spreads really don’t do it for me.
I’m still not quite sure what you’re asking. Lagre breasts are usually a sign of higher estrogen levels. Higher estrogen levels can increase the liklihood of gaining excess body fat, and excess body fat increases estrogen levels, so this quickly becomes a self-extending cycle.
But higher estrogen levels usually also contribute to a smaller proportionate waist size. So large boobs usually come along with an “hour-glass” shape (or in my case a “week-glass”), rather than an “apple on a stick” shape.
So if you are asking about a proportionately large waist, as opposed to simple obesity, then a lower estrogen level would cause it, and likely also result in a lower, rather than a higher, breast size.
That is funny as hell.
That’s me too. BMI 21 at my lightest as an adult, BMI 28 at the heaviest, but always a C cup. Granted it was a 32C on one end and a 38C on the other, but my breasts didn’t change very much at all despite a 60 pounds weight difference. I’ve read that having denser breast tissue makes some women less prone to weight-related size changes.
Interesting. When I gained weight, everything grew proportionately. Well there you have it, folks. People are different.
rhubarbarin, I have finding bottoms that don’t muffin-top me. Maybe clothing is just easier for you because you are small overall? I know smaller women have their own clothing issues, but it seems to me anyways like it’s easier for something “off the rack” to fit a small woman.
A 32 C has a much smaller cup than a 38 C. . .
I don’t think you have it quite right. It’s true that women with large breasts AND narrow waists have been found to have the highest estrogen levels. But all women with narrow waists compared to their hips, no matter their breast size, tend to have higher estrogen levels than women who have broad waists and narrower hips (and tend to put on fat in their stomach and boobs, rather than their hips and thighs and sometimes boobs).
Breast size is much more a function of the (genetic) sensitivity of your breast tissue to circulating estrogens. Plenty of women with low levels of female hormones and high levels of androgens, as we know from studying women with PCOS, have average-size to very large boobs.
I think I have about an average amount of trouble with clothes. I actually have more trouble finding things off the rack than my straight size or small plus-size friends, because I am so small that women’s brand’s smallest size these days (and they get bigger every year) is much too big. I am a perfect kids size 14 but I am too long to wear a lot of kids items (and I don’t want to wear items that look like they’re for kids). I have a couple friends who are size 16-18 and up, they have the absolute hardest time. The internet helps, but there is still painfully little available for larger plus sizes, much less cute non-boxy clothes. Just like there are very few grown women these days in the USA with 34" hips, there are still relatively few women who wear over size 18. I don’t know if demand will ever create a decent supply.
Like any woman I can complain all day about the features of my body which make it so hard to find anything to wear…
I don’t have a pic where you can see it well, since she dresses to hide it, but my mother looks like Santa, minus the beard, plus D cups. Her ass hasn’t gotten bigger with weight gain, and it has gotten flatter due to age-caused droopiness, so her measurement there is actually smaller than before she gained weight.
Any woman with a flat butt, narrower hips, and a waist that doesn’t taper can have very similar measurements of waist and hips without carrying a lot of fat in the stomach. Kesha. Catherine Zeta Jones. Sherri Shepherd. They are all textbook slimmer apple (rectangle) shapes who carry their weight in their upper arms, back, boobs, and midsection and have narrow hips with slim arms and legs.
I have rather full breasts (36C, which isn’t GIGANTIC, but they look bigger because the rest of me is so tiny) and I have never weighed more than 130 lbs. People make a lot of how skinny I am all the time. As it happens, I took my measurements the other day so I could have a corset fitted to me. I come in at 36-27-35. I have long spindly arms and an easily noticed clavicle, so I’m not really carrying much weight up top.
My BFF is the opposite – she’s a big girl, but has small breasts, which makes it almost impossible for her to buy bras that fit, since the bra companies assume that every big girl is gonna have giant boobs. Her weight’s in her bottom and belly, not in her chest.
Well, I voted no, considering my own situation. But I have to admit it’s generally considered to be true.
I used to have a very small waist. I kept buying cool belts to show it off. They never looked good because of the looming boobage–made me look dumpy.
But I think I have a condition. Not a normal one.