How Much Do Breasts Weigh?

[Chronos]

Female mammaries evolved with a purpose - and there is all kinds of stuff in there in order to facilitate that purpose.

Female mammaries evolved with two purposes (at least, in humans), and there’s stuff in there to facilitate both of them. One purpose is milk production, and the stuff which facilitates that fits comfortably into an AAA cup. The other purpose is to attract men’s attention, and the stuff which facilitates that is mostly fat.

[nashiitashii]

@WhyNot

No way. I haven’t seen a D cup in many years - I think I’m somewhere around an “I” by most charts, but most charts aren’t very accurate at my size.

Anyway, I’ve always wondered this myself, and since I have this scale sitting on my dining room table right now…
7.2 pounds each. They’re a little too wide to get a good read on together, but that should make 'em around 14 or 15 pounds. That’s measured by sitting in a chair next to the table, lifting up a sister and setting it down on the scale - where it rests with a flat bottom and I don’t feel the weight tugging at me anymore. Short of the volume method (which is too messy and noisy for me to attempt while the baby’s sleeping in the next room), I think it’s a pretty accurate read.

I’ve got a food scale, so I played the “weigh each boob separately” game for comparison and ended up with about 8.2lb for each boob. So, total, that’d be 16.4lb. It’s within the range. Maybe I’ve got really “heavy” boobs comparatively, as I’m still a D/DD, depending on the sizing scale.

[WhyNot]

@Pygmy Rugger

15-23 pounds for a pair of Ds. WhyNot claims 7.2 apiece. 14.4 for her pair. She must have some pretty small Ds.

ETA. Oh. She says she’s Is. My bad.

Heh, yeah. Not small D’s, much, much larger than D’s. (Like I said, the charts get wonky in my range, but my bust measurement is 10" larger than my ribcage measurement.) So I don’t think that statistic will be well…uh…supported. So to speak.

[silenus]

@BlakeTyner

A girlfriend and I did an unscientific experiment about breast weight about ten years ago. She got on the scale, and we noted what it read. Then I, standing on the floor behind her, cupped them and lifted. There was about a 5 pound drop on the scale. She had C cups.

Let me guess…you were the one who suggested the experiment.

[Spice_Weasel]

And they’re not mostly fat. When boys get boobs, that’s fat. Female mammaries evolved with a purpose - and there is all kinds of stuff in there in order to facilitate that purpose.

Depending on BMI, there could be a lot of fat, too. But they don’t start out as fat.

CITE: any physiology text you choose

Thanks for the useful info. So does that mean breast size doesn’t affect the BMI all that much?

I am a 38 DDD, unfortunately we don’t have a scale.

WhyNot, as for your Is, you have my sympathy. I am just at the borderline of ongoing back pain and general discomfort, and I can’t imagine how miserable you must be!

[herownself]

@olivesmarch4th

Thanks for the useful info. So does that mean breast size doesn’t affect the BMI all that much?

I am a 38 DDD, unfortunately we don’t have a scale.

WhyNot, as for your Is, you have my sympathy. I am just at the borderline of ongoing back pain and general discomfort, and I can’t imagine how miserable you must be!

Actually, Olives, I think it’s mostly the other way around. BMI impacts breast size and composition. Meaning, if you have more fat on your body, you’ll have more fat in your boobs. Loose the weight, loose the fat from all over your body, it will come out of your boobs too. But you still have all the important stuff that would spring in to action should you need to nurse your baby. Just not cushioned by as much fat. (all this I know from personal experience … I thought my boobs would get much smaller than they did when I lost the weight. and I was a 38DD)

But, I guess having big ones could impact your BMI. 15 extra pounds of flesh hanging from your torso could easily tip you over the line from one category to another - and it’s not like you can exercise them away!

[Spice_Weasel]

15 extra pounds of flesh hanging from your torso could easily tip you over the line from one category to another - and it’s not like you can exercise them away!

Yeah no kidding! I lost 50 lbs and went UP a cup size! They never bothered me so much until I dropped the weight–because for some reason, they didn’t.

[SailedTheOceanBlue]

@Gaudere

Ok, now I must call shenaingans on the 15 - 23 pound answer. if water volume rougly equals breast volume, a 10 pound breast would be 20 cups of water in volume, or a gallon and a quarter. Gallon-size is considerably beyond all but the very largest breasts.

I call shenanigans too. I have a food scale and wear a D-cup. The total weight of my breasts is about 2.5 lbs.

Don’t bra cups get bigger along with band size? I’m normally a 34D but around that time of the month, I have to go up to a 36D otherwise I get quadboob.

[danceswithcats]

@Chronos

Female mammaries evolved with two purposes (at least, in humans), and there’s stuff in there to facilitate both of them. One purpose is milk production, and the stuff which facilitates that fits comfortably into an AAA cup. The other purpose is to attract men’s attention, and the stuff which facilitates that is mostly fat.

Which is why breasts have been compared to electric toy trains. Designed for the children, but Dad loves to play with them every chance he gets.

[ultrafilter]

@Chez Guevara

Actually I prefer this method:

Jan Wethersby has the following tip: Find a medium sauce pan that will fit over your breast with some room to spare. Fill this pan with water and set it in a larger pan. Bend over and submerge your breast completely in the water. Weigh the water that spilled into the large pan. Since flesh weighs about the same as water, this is a good approximation of your breast weight.

Is that Archimedes Principle in action by any chance?
Cite (Question 39).

Be sure to use cold water for best results.

[essell]

@marshmallow

googles

fails

Do go on.

NSFW
Direct link to dirty words, no pictures.

[nashiitashii]

@SailedTheOceanBlue

I call shenanigans too. I have a food scale and wear a D-cup. The total weight of my breasts is about 2.5 lbs.

Don’t bra cups get bigger along with band size? I’m normally a 34D but around that time of the month, I have to go up to a 36D otherwise I get quadboob.

I posted significantly higher results further up the thread and I’m a 38D. Hmmmm.

Bra cups do get bigger along with band size, otherwise “sister sizing” wouldn’t work with anyone. Technically, if I measure as a 38D but the 38D doesn’t quite fit right, I could try the sister sizes of 40C or 36DD to see if the adjustment (up/down a band and cup size) helps.

Thing is, this doesn’t always work in the same way that measuring yourself doesn’t guarantee that the bras that match “your size” measurements will actually fit.

[BlakeTyner]

@silenus

Let me guess…you were the one who suggested the experiment.

Lessee…ten years ago I’d have been 16, so absolutely!

[Spice_Weasel]

I call shenanigans too. I have a food scale and wear a D-cup. The total weight of my breasts is about 2.5 lbs.

Did some investigation. Just by my own estimation (I’m pretty good at estimating the weights of plums and radishes, so why not boobs?), I’m thinking they have to be 4-5 lbs each, which is a far cry from 15-20 lbs. This would also fit in with WhyNot’s assesment.

Hahaha, boobs. I love the Dope.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

I just quoted an article about a study, so I don’t have anything to lose if the number is wrong and no reason that it must be defended.

However, it occurs to me that the subject of breast weight is an awful lot like the subject of penis size. The answers you get will vary tremendously depending on exactly where you start measuring from.

When you place a breast on a scale, you aren’t relocating the entire breast, just the more easily movable bit. The area where the breast fits into the chest is probably not being weighed at all.

No idea how the scientists get an accurate and systematic weight for their study, but I’m betting that these anecdotes aren’t really answering the question well.

[RedRosesForMe]

Once, when I was younger and more prone to idiotic acts in public, I put a boob in one of the hanging scales at the supermarket. It said 8 pounds for my C-cup breast.

I’m sure it wasn’t very accurate.

[Chez_Guevara]

…

[Chez_Guevara]

@olivesmarch4th

At what proportion of the total weight are things considered normal, or does it vary wildly from person to person?

From here:

Breast volume and body composition were measured in 45 adult females to determine the contribution of breast weight and breast volume to total body fat. Plaster casts were filled with sand of known density to obtain breast volume. Breast weight was computed as breast volume times its density. The correlation between total breast volume and percent body fat was r = .40. Breast weight (X = 484 grams) accounted for 3.5 percent of the total weight of body fat, and at most, 12 percent of the estimated quantities of sex-specific fat. A theoretical model is proposed for the distribution of body fat in the female which subdivides total body fat into three components: reserve storage fat, essential fat, and expendable storage fat.

The bolded X has a horizontal line above but won’t copy.

If someone could explain that function, also the equation r = .40, the abstract might prove instructive even with such a small sample. I can’t reach the full article.

[beowulff]

@RedRosesForMe

Once, when I was younger and more prone to idiotic acts in public, I put a boob in one of the hanging scales at the supermarket. It said 8 pounds for my C-cup breast.

I’m sure it wasn’t very accurate.

I’ll take two.
Wrapped to go, please.

[Carol_the_Impaler]

I actually have had my breast tissue weighed by a professional.

The pathologists who did the post-surgery work after my breast reductions.

I started out as a 38DDD. The surgeon removed 7 lbs of tissue. I was then a 38DD.

I had a re-do. The surgeon removed an additional 3 lbs to bring me down to a 38C.

So, in the end, 38DDD to 38C, 10 lbs off total.