The start of all this was when I was reading an article on-line about a **29** and how buxom she now was. There was a link to a recent photo of her. Well, I did not think she was all that amazing. In fact, she looked rather normal, possibly a bit flatter than average.
That is when I caught myself. Had I become so spoiled by the BEA that my points of reference had become warped. Had life with my bosomy bunny Kithara made me blind to the proportions and assets of equally wonderful yet simply smaller women?
Just what makes a woman qualify as having a “big”, “large”, “huge” or whatever well-above-average chest? Is there any possible way to quantify this objectively? How could one possibly factor in all the various elements that come together to define apparent size?
So then the research began...
After a good deal of number crunching and reading several very dry articles on human proportions I have compiled a composite chart that should help answer the question -
“Is she really big?”
Yes, there is no single chart that will work for every women, however this is precisely the idea that started me out. Using the “average” woman as a base I looked for a way to relate height, built, weight, and cup size back to that average. I selected the BMI (body mass index) as one way to reduce the influence of body build when it came to cup size.
The resulting chart relates the percent of the female population to the bust / height in question. After much review I found that the 95 percentile was a logical braking point for when a woman moves “beyond her peers”. This is the only arbitrary boundary that I established. It was based off my review of clothing manufactures, from dresses to bras, who try and accommodate within the 95% range.
In other words, if the lady in question is larger than 95% of other women of the same height and BMI, she can truly be called big and well above average. Since bras a made in a series of increasing sizes that makes for a nice grid that can be superimposed. I also found that the 95% range worked well for maximum height and chest circumference - these also appear on the final chart.
Chart Cup Sizes-
I used A, B, C, D, E, F etc. just as if they were 1", 2", 3", 4", 5", 6" size differences. I am not about to tackle the whole DD, DDD, E, EE, etc. weirdness. These letters do not correspond to any one bra manufacture, but rather to the overall incremental bra size jumps. So if the tag says DDD, just understand that is probably is a F on the chart.
Adjusting for much higher or lower BMI’s-
This chart is centered on a BMI base value of 25 for ages from 25 to 55. For each BMI increase of 4, shift the small/average/large lines to the right one grid. So there is a shift at 29, 33, 37. If your BMI is less than 21 shift the regions one grid to the left. This adjusts for “build”. Realize that for a 5'-4" (162.6 cm) woman a shift of 4 in BMI is a change of around 25 lbs.(10.9kg).
The chest circumferences (values at the right) also move down on grid for each increase in BMI of 4 and up for each reduction of 4. Height is not affected as it is part of the BMI calculations. If the woman is above the chart height range, 5'-11" (180.3 cm) she is already taller than 95% of women, however she would need to have something in the G range to be considered big. (Not by me - but by bra makers, doctors, statisticians, and about 4 other sources)
Apart from my manufacturer derived boundary of the 95 percentile designation of “large” all the values that generated the 25, 50, 95, and 99 ranges were from extensive human proportion studies. (Cross-compared to bra manufactures)
I will not bore you with more of the data points and cross-checking that went into this...
And so, here it is.
The “Is She Really Big?” Chart.