In Renaissance times, were thin women almost all flat-chested?

Question

So, for a woman to have breasts, she would almost have to have been overweight. Thus explaining why Renaissance paintings seem to depict predominantly overweight women. It's not because the painter liked fat, but because he liked breasts.

I've noted something similar in Japanese TV and movies. The "big breasted" characters are often chubby.

Due to nutritional and other factors, women in Renaissance times reached puberty much later than girls today, and their bodies developed at a stunted rate. This much is known fact. The question is, how widespread was flat-chestedness? Was it so widespread that it would have been "common knowledge" that only overweight women have breasts?

Please provide historical sources.

"If you can afford to be voluptuous it suggests that you do not lead a hard life and are well fed."

People keep saying this, but I haven't seem any evidence. It seems to me that this bit of "history" was just "common sense" that over time attained myth status.

Answer 1

Part of the reason that most thin women seemed flat chested is that they wore corsets. Corsets didn't just pull tummies tight, it squeezed everything flat. Including breasts.
As to the fat thing...being large was considered attractive at the time. If you were fat, that meant you had high status and could afford to eat well.

Answer 2

Your question has more to do with societal norms of beauty than evolutionary or genetic changes over the ages.

You mention nutritional factors in renaissance times. Women who were well fed had 2 things going for them.

1) Women who carry weight in their mid-section and are wide hipped and large breasted were thought to be more succesful breeders. There is apparently some scientific truth to this notion, but I do not have time right now to research a source (sorry!)Having children, in particular sons, was very important to survival at all levels of society right up until the industrial revolution, so you can see the attraction.

2) Voluptuous women in art during this period convey not only the conventional view of beauty, but also a common view of wealth. If you can afford to be voluptuous it suggests that you do not lead a hard life and are well fed. Not many people in renaissance times got 3 squares a day.

Answer 3

Generally speaking, yes -- women were much flatter, on average, than today. But remember that modern American women typically have much larger breasts than women of most other nationalities. And remember too that very few flat-chested women in America will let it be obvious that they're flat-chested. Even those who would never go for a boob job wear padded bras, gel bras etc. and small-breasted women wear underwire bras to push what fat they have around their chest into a location and shape in which it resembles what a breast might be like if the fat had actually formed part of their breasts.

Answer 4

It was once a known fact that the world was flat! Painters painted fat women because painters usually used the aristocracy and middle classes as their subjects. Being overweight was a sign of affluence. But I think you have something with the nutritional angle.

Now, as to overweight women having larger breasts, think about the physics. To support larger breasts you need a stronger back. Gaining weight changes the dynamics of this equation. The larger a women is, the more likely she is to be able to support larger breasts. I would imagine that smaller women with larger breasts ended up as hunchbacks at some point or other.

Answer 5

You're not taking into account the clothing worn at the time. They didn't have push-up bras, or much of anything to "accentuate the positive." Most undergarments were slip like affairs and the heavy clothing worn over it didn't leave much of a bulge to be seen.
Bu tit is a fact that womwn today are larger. The make bras up to a J cup.

Answer 6

Women in the Renaissance often followed Queen Elizabeth I as a fashion model. She herself was quite flat-chested, so women wore corsets not only to pull in their waistlines, but their breasts as well.

Answer 7

They probably strapped them down anyway, and there was probably the same ratio of falt chested and big chested as there is today, you just couldn't tell because of the type of the clothing they wore then.

Answer 8

Size of breast has nothing to do with thin or fat. I have seen many fat women with very small breasts and very thin women with huge breasts.I think it is all in the genes or climate or races or even in the food they take.

Answer 9

heh.


nice observation.