Cheyenne Lin, 26, had constant back pain before her surgery.
Credit...Maggie Shannon for The New York Times

A Surge in Breast Reductions

We explore why younger women are undergoing the cosmetic procedure.

20 Sep 2024, 10:48 by https://www.nytimes.com/by/lisa-miller · NY Times

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.

They lamented being unable to comfortably run track, figure skate, snowboard, hike or dance at their own parties. They bind their breasts with double sports bras. They can’t shop in regular retail stores. They’re mortified by having to wear special bras and bathing suits with thick support straps.

Before her reduction, Lin’s breasts were asymmetrical. Starting in her sophomore year of college, she had such constant, searing back pain that she felt trapped in the body of a 70-year-old. When I met her in Los Angeles the week after her surgery, she spoke about her former breasts in derogatory terms, having turned the negative attention of the world on herself. They were “kind of flat and saggy,” she said. She began to hate them so much that she averted her eyes when she toweled off after the shower.

‘Men need to change’

Still, I wondered. We have been living through a revolutionary era of body acceptance. I sent my own daughter to a sleepaway camp where the rule was “no body talk”: Girls were not to comment on other girls’ physical appearance, for any reason. In my friend groups, we are scrupulously careful not to pass down a previous generation’s damaging obsession with thinness and dieting, and we tell our daughters how beautiful they are, whatever their shape.

So the idea that breast reduction is a liberation puzzled me. Isn’t it just another tool that helps women conform to a body type that is endorsed by the wider culture and is amplified by influencers on TikTok wearing bikinis on yachts? Isn’t it an expensive way to be able to wear tube tops and smock dresses in a flattering way? Maybe reductions are mirror image of breast augmentation, still one of the top plastic surgery procedures in the country, at about 300,000 per year.

The answer, or a partial answer, came in a series of conversations with the sociologist Sarah Thornton, who in May published “Tits Up,” a social history of the breast. As desirable as it may be, it is actually impossible to exist as a woman in the world without absorbing all the thoughts and feelings everyone else has about her body, she reminded me. And breasts, especially bigger breasts, draw a disproportionate amount of attention. Starting at puberty, girls with larger breasts are both oversexualized and critiqued for being droopy, saggy, flabby — and other adjectives associated with aging.

“We all want to live in a world where we’re not bothered by our appearance, but that’s not the reality we’re living in right now,” Thornton said. “If women are going to have an emancipated rack, then men need to change.”

THE LATEST NEWS

North Carolina

In posts on an online porn forum more than a decade ago, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina, the Republican nominee for governor, described himself as a “black NAZI” and defended slavery, CNN reported.
Robinson, who denied the posts were his, has a history of offensive remarks. He has quoted Adolf Hitler and suggested a lack of Christian teachings is to blame for school shootings.
Some aides to Donald Trump had hoped Robinson would withdraw, fearing his scandals will make it harder for Trump to win the swing state. Robinson vowed to stay in the race.

Democratic Campaign

Oprah Winfrey hosted a livestream forum for Kamala Harris. Guests included a teenager who was shot at school and the family of a woman who died as a consequence of Georgia’s abortion ban.
Harris outspent Trump by 20 to 1 on Facebook and Instagram the week of their debate, a sign of their uneven online advertising battle.
Dane County in suburban Madison, Wis., is the fastest-growing county in the swing state. Democrats see promise: The people moving there tend to vote for them.

Republican Campaign

Trump said “the Jewish people would have a lot to do” with it if he loses the election, describing Jews who vote for Democrats as “voting for the enemy.”
Trump’s allies are pushing Nebraska’s Republican-dominated legislature to change how the state awards electoral votes for president, making it easier for Trump to win them all.
Trump’s pledge to visit Springfield, Ohio, where he has falsely accused Haitian immigrants of eating pets, has alarmed residents. JD Vance said he would keep referring to Haitians in the city, most of whom are in the U.S. legally, as illegal aliens.
Mike DeWine, Ohio’s Republican governor, who was born in Springfield, criticized Trump and Vance’s comments. “This rhetoric hurts the city and its people,” he wrote in Times Opinion.

U.S. Economy

President Biden called the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut “a new phase of our economy and our recovery,” but said he was not declaring victory on the high cost of living.
Stocks reached new highs after the Fed’s rate cut fueled financial optimism. Mortgage rates continued to drop, which could reinvigorate the housing market.
Should you refinance your mortgage after the interest rate cut? Here’s how to decide.

Middle East

The leader of Hezbollah said that the group would retaliate against Israel for the exploding electronics attacks that killed 37 people in Lebanon this week.
Hours after his speech, Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes against Hezbollah.
The pager attacks were proof of Israel’s technological and spycraft might. Their strategic goal was less clear.
The attacks turned ordinary devices into miniature grenades — an unsettling development for a world where everything is connected to the internet, David Sanger writes.

Opinions

After leaving Fox News, Tucker Carlson has become even more effective at uniting anti-establishment, MAGA Republicans, Jason Zengerle writes.

As weight-loss drugs explode in popularity, the medical community needs to develop a definition of obesity that emphasizes health risks, not just body size, Julia Belluz writes.

Here are columns by Michelle Goldberg on Elon Musk’s destruction of Twitter and Pamela Paul on the medical establishment.

MORNING READS

‘True prices’: Damage to the environment isn’t factored into the price of food. Researchers want to expose this hidden cost by displaying it — in dollars — to consumers.

Wheel hustlers: These New Yorkers are making thousands of dollars by moving Citi Bikes around the block.

Legumes: Experts weigh in on the health benefits of bean and chickpea pastas — and how to make it taste good.

Reconstruction: Prehistoric Earth was very hot. That offers clues about the planet’s future.

State of the unions: The Times covered their wedding in 2018. Through miscarriage and a high-risk pregnancy, their relationship has remained strong.

Lives Lived: JD Souther was part of a coterie of musicians around Los Angeles who circled a peaceful, country-inflected rock sound in the late 1960s. Souther played a central role in the rise of the Eagles, writing or co-writing some of their best-known songs. He died at 78.

SPORTS

M.L.B.: Shohei Ohtani became the first player in league history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a season.

N.F.L.: Aaron Rodgers and the Jets defeated the Patriots, 24-3, showcasing how good New York can be with Rodgers healthy.

W.N.B.A.: The Atlanta Dream clinched the final spot in the postseason after defeating the New York Liberty. See the bracket here.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Many comedy clubs book stand-ups based on networking and follower counts. And while live comedy has recovered well from the pandemic, the gulf in influence between celebrity comics and gifted young unknowns has grown, the Times comedy columnist Jason Zinoman writes. A new venue — the Bushwick Comedy Club — is trying to challenge the establishment. “Simply put, we’re going to actually watch submission tapes,” one of the owners told Jason.