As part of the interview, he mentions an interesting study that he's conducting - measuring the breasts of bra-wearing women and women who don't wear bras to see if there's a difference
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For some reason (my hypothesis - people love boobs) this is more interesting than his other major research interests which include rehab for elderly people and psychometric effects of biathlonspic.twitter.com/4WtrJ91WWO
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The basic idea is that this researcher has found that women who use bras have "saggier" breasts than women who don't, over time (16 years) Momentous stuff
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France Info puts out a press release, and the story goes instantly viral Covered across the world, translated into multiple languages, put out in almost every form imaginablepic.twitter.com/3rhgMoNdz3
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And this story is still being repeated word-for-word half a decade later Here's a piece from January this year that is basically indistinguishable from the media noise in 2013 https://culturacolectiva.com/technology/benefits-of-not-wearing-bra …
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I read about this interesting factoid, and thought it sounded a bit weird For one thing, who's funding a 16-year long study into breast sagginess???
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So, with my schoolboy French in hand, I went looking for the actual research I found nothing. No published research, no conference presentations, not even a whisper of a scientific study
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The only reference in the academic literature that appears to exist is this presentation by a student of the original researcher on a descriptive study of 50 women asking about their experiences of wearing sports bras that found no negative effects http://www.sudoc.abes.fr/xslt/DB=2.1//SRCH?IKT=12&TRM=14617223X&COOKIE=U10178,Klecteurweb,I250,B341720009+,SY,NLECTEUR+WEBOPC,D2.1,E5977e3cb-13ef,A,H,R60.241.114.100,FY&COOKIE=U10178,Klecteurweb,I250,B341720009+,SY,NLECTEUR+WEBOPC,D2.1,E2c3d0d4d-104d,A,H,R203.32.142.58,FY …
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And...that's it Even though this research has apparently been going on for more than 2 decades now, there is not a single published paper that I can find describing it Very oddpic.twitter.com/uHzDcYKgra
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And if you go on the hyperlink-trail of references in media articles about this research, you basically end up back at France Info who don't reference any research at all
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Which means that this amazing story - bras cause boob sagginess - that is repeated even today by major media publications, and believed by quite a large number of people, is based on...nothing (or at least the scientific equivalent of nothing)
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The reality is that there's no evidence that bras cause breast sagging, but somehow articles are still being published arguing that they do
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It's a wonderful insight into how easy it is to start a health myth, and the amazing longevity that such myths have in our collective consciousness
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