Lisa Miller tells stories about how people care for themselves for the Well section.
Fashion is cyclical, and so are fashionable body types. Katharine Hepburn gave way to Marilyn Monroe, who gave way to Twiggy. Madonna was overtaken by Kate Moss. Then Kardashian voluptuousness blew up heroin chic. But when Stella Bugbee, the editor of the Times’s Styles section, pointed me to data showing a 64 percent surge in elective breast-reduction surgeries since 2019, we both knew this was more than a fad.
I wanted to find out what was happening. Breast reductions have risen in every age group, but especially among patients under 30. Why would more than 70,000 women each year submit to anesthesia, a painful recovery and possible changes to nipple sensation? Why would they risk their ability to breastfeed?
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why fashions change. The reason can be a simple rejection of what came before. But sometimes fashion reflects massive political and cultural shifts. Punk manifested the populist fury of anti-Thatcher Britain. Vintage and thrift styles reflect Gen Z’s environmentalism. Women’s suffrage, the sexual revolution, the entry of women into the professional work force, #MeToo — all these history-making moments have changed not just how women think of themselves but their outward presentation as well.
I wrote a story about the new preference for small-breastedness, which The Times published today. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain.
Lifting a burden
Plastic surgeons say their breast-reduction patients are propelled by social media and word of mouth. They’ve consumed breast-reduction content online, in graphic and intimate detail, and now these young women regard the procedure as a liberation, attainable for a four- or five-figure fee. (Getting insurance to cover any elective breast reduction is a struggle.) “I am more than my baby-making and -feeding parts,” is how they put it to Kelly Killeen, a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills.
The patients talked about the psychic and physical toll of growing up with bigger breasts: constant male attention, disapproval and shaming from parents and teachers who push girls to cover themselves up. Cheyenne Lin, 26, told me about standing in line during recess in elementary school when a teacher reached down and pulled her shirt collar, which had slipped down her shoulder, up to her neck. “I thought I was doing something wrong, but it was just — I had boobs,” she said.