A customer peruses lingerie at a Beijing shopping center. [Zou Hong / China Daily]

Changes in attitudes have boosted female curves in the city

Shi Pu, a 17-year-old high school student, has been thinking about having plastic surgery to increase her breast size.

She has worn a bra since she was 13 and is starting to get frustrated that her cup size is still only an A.

"The size has bothered me a lot," she said. "I want to be at least two cup sizes larger than I am now."

Despite the fact that a doctor has told her that she should wait until she has finished growing before undergoing surgery, she doesn't want to wait that long.

"My dream is to be an actress," she said. "How can I be one without a good figure?

"Considering how much attention women with great curves receive, I want to have the operation done right now."

Shi is among a growing number of young urban Chinese women looking for great curves.

Luo Huilan, a professor at China Women's University, said the trend is obvious.

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"Today, more and more women are aware of their bodies," Luo said. "As society has changed and the mass media have affected the way in which we think and act, the attitude toward bosom size has changed too.

"A body with great curves is now emphasized as a standard for female beauty."

She said things were different decades ago, when women didn't place so much importance on a girl's weight or bust size and when people rarely talked about such things.

Wang Yun remembers those days well. The 55-year-old has a D cup and, as a young woman, had the kind of body many girls dream of today.

But her curvaceous shape was not much of an advantage during her youth.

"In my day, women didn't wear bras," she recalled. "They wore a strip of cloth tied around their breasts to flatten them, because they would feel embarrassed if they showed their body curves."

Wang, who made her own figure-hiding vests, said there were no bust-enhancing bras on the market back then and modesty was the only option.

"Women with great curves would be thought of as bad women," she said.

She said her body was a problem for her ever since she grew breasts at age 16 much more quickly than her classmates.

"I didn't like to go to gym class because it was very embarrassing," she remembered. "My chest was a real burden when I was doing exercises. It brought me so much trouble. Actually, I wished my breasts were smaller."

Luo said the breast-flattening vests women wore back then were typical of a society that prized inner beauty above physical attributes.

Yuan Yuan, a masseuse at a health spa, said women today are hung up on their physical looks and the valuing of large breasts has triggered a boom in demand for bust massages.

"Breast massage is very popular among female customers," she said. "Aside from the need for breasts to be healthy, most women want to make theirs beautiful, firm, shapely and perky."

Happily for women, at a time when they are treasuring their assets, bust sizes are actually increasing.

In 2006, the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology released a report that concluded that the chest size of Chinese women had increased by nearly a centimeter, to 83.53 cm, since the early 1990s.

The measurements were taken from a sample of almost 3,000 women between 18 and 30 years old during a six-year period.

The report said the growing bust size was the result of women eating nutritious food and becoming more active through sports.

Wang Yang, a lingerie designer with Aimer, said cup sizes have also gone up during the past decade, something he attributes to improved living standards and diets that include nutrient-rich food such as cereals with milk, peanuts, cheese and fruit.

"We used to design bras for cup sizes A or B but now we mainly design bras with C or D cups and even E or F cups," he said. "In addition, the patterns and designs of bras have changed too. They are more colorful and fashionable now."

Dong Yanping, a saleswoman with a lingerie shop, said she has been surprised recently to see girls younger than 16 needing bras with C or D cups.

"It would have been very unusual in the past, when women mostly wore A or B cups," Dong said. "You would never expect those thin women to have such great curves unless they were plastic."

Which brings us back to Shi, the 17-year-old contemplating plastic surgery to enlarge her breasts.

After learning about advances in the bra industry and the fact that so many young women are growing curves the natural way, she has become more patient.

Helped by her mother, who bought her some padded bras, Shi's breasts now look one cup size larger.

Xu Lin, a plastic surgeon intern at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, said young women should always put health before beauty.

"For most girls who desire bigger breasts, being healthy is the main thing," she said.

"There are many well-fitting bras available on the market that can create remarkable improvement in a woman's appearance. Women should take better care of their bodies. "

Shi Pu and Wang Yun declined to use their real names.