As a girl child, I dreaded the idea of growing up. I would look at women with breasts and pray to God that the same wouldn’t happen to me. I recollect a discussion with my closest friend in Senior one, with whom I pursued Football and other athletic feats, the inevitable future of added weight to the chest and hip areas and how that would affect our abilities! On the other hand, we still had the lingering desire to develop and be considered grown women. The impending doom of our bodies’ development and how we would change hang over us, so did our relations with the boys with whom we rode bikes, played Football and engaged in all sorts of shenanigans. Our conversations shifted to musings of how girls felt about running with their breasts swinging. Naturally, this made me uncomfortable and worsened my apprehension. I wasn’t aware of the helpful sports bras thus I never thought of counteracting questions like how could boys possibly run with a swinging appendage between their legs.
“Be deliberate about how you engage with her and her appearance. Encourage her participation in sports. Teach her to be physically active. Take walks with her. Swim. Run. Play tennis. Football. Table tennis. All kinds of sports. Any kind of sports. I think this is important, not only because of the obvious health benefits but because it will help spare her the pain of body image issues and insecurities. Let her know the value of being active, both for her physical and mental wellness. Studies show that girls generally stop playing sports as they hit puberty, which is not a surprise. Breasts and general self-consciousness and awkwardness with one’s body and self that every girl goes through can get in the way of sports….and I can speak from experience. I stopped playing Football when my breasts first developed because all I wanted was to hide them and pray they’d disappear, as they caused me to have some disconnect with my body, running and tackling became difficult, uncomfortable, and unbearable.” From Chimamanda’s Dear Ijeaweale
Desperation pushed me to try to find out how one could possibly prevent the growth of breasts. Often times, we girls would discuss amongst ourselves the myths of hitting your chest with a mingling stick three times or getting your aunt to hit you, as well as other seemingly bizarre remedies that permeated African culture. I was also told frightening tales about how engaging in sports would cause one’s breasts to lose their firmness. It was not until later that I learned that the reverse is, in fact, true.
While carrying out research, given the diverse literature I had to read through, I naturally came across some ridiculous theses. One research paper discussing why female sports have low viewership, and one of their proposals was that Women’s games are slow. They explained that “With the development of features like breasts, women’s efficiency declines and causes women to perform at a slower rate,” and continued, “For example, women’s football is seen as boring and slow because with puberty, women’s thighs increase in size, and this affects the running and the strength they can deliver to kick a ball.” Read that twice. If that is true, I wonder why modern-day male athletes work hard to have big toned thighs.
It has never occurred to me that my physical developments have affected my play. It is all in mind. I can’t dispute that men are naturally more muscular body-wise, which accounts for the strength differences but, I can tell you that breast growth, thigh growth, hips growth, and maybe “bottom” growth have nothing on you as a sports girl. Ignore what everyone else says. I learned about sports bras in my later years of secondary school, but over the past years, I had been wearing just a perfectly fitting “boob-tube” (and here confusion lies), or if you prefer, we can call it a regular bra. And I must reiterate the point that physical activity helps develop and tone those parts of you that you are worried about! If you are not into competitive sports, you ought to do way too many exercises to keep you in shape and good health. In conclusion, I would propose the use of garments available to ease our lives. There are sports bras and shorts available for females of all sizes, shapes, and designs. Don’t look at the beginning of puberty as the end of your just blossoming journey in sports. Embrace your features and be proud!
“Support Women In Sports”
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