Female Athletes and their Bodies
An often overlooked issue is about female athletes and their bodies. A recent news article highlighted the story of 18 year old Simona Halep. She is a young tennis player who is moving up the ranks in her sport. Her issue stems from the fact that over the years her breast size overdeveloped and she suddenly had trouble playing the game she loved. She opted to get breast reduction surgery to have them reduced and this issue brought up an interesting point; does the size of female athlete’s b*****s affect them at the sport they are playing. This issue can sometimes be taken in the wrong direction and turned into cheap humour but as it can cause back problems and hinder a talented athlete’s performance on the field, it is a very serious one.
Not a lot of medical research has been done in regards to this issue, but it seems to be a polarising one. On the one hand female athletes often opt for breast reduction surgery to help their performance on the field of play, while at other times female athletes who become too lean and muscular opt to get breast augmentation surgery done to enhance their femininity. There is no right or wrong answer to this question of whether a female athlete should get reduction surgery or enhancement surgery. It is a personal choice that only the woman herself can make at the end of the day.
Simona Halep has been quickly moving up the ranks in the tennis world. She is a pretty good player and has won major titles and championships at the junior level. This 18 year old has to not only contended with the fact that she is trying to rise in the ranks of the tennis world, but she also had to contend with a hefty bust size. Over the years she went through a lot of changes to her body and one of them was that her breast size increased. They increased to a point where they were at a size of 34DD and she went on record to state that the size of her b*****s was affecting her on court performance. She suffered from an inability to move around the court and she had severe back pain and neck strains from carrying the weight around.
She decided to get breast reduction surgery and went through with it last summer. She has returned to tennis now after recovering and she seems like she moves around the court much easier than she did before. Even though she was defeated during her match at the French Open last year, she is a new talent to watch out for in the future.
Another female athlete who is an Olympic hurdler actually went the opposite way and got breast augmentation surgery. Jana Rawlinson’s story is one where she had the surgery done to look more feminine after a lifetime of sports had given her a very toned and lean body. The enhancements did not hinder her performance because she went on to win the 400 metres hurdles at the Osaka World Championship in 2007 and at the Grand Prix event in Spain in 2009. She has reportedly said that she will have her implants removed to better her chances of winning a gold medal at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. So she might have experienced some hindrance with the implants that has led her to get them removed.
Is it safe for female athletes to get breast enhancement surgery done for the long term aspects of their careers? Doctors state that the weight and volume of implants can affect the performance levels of a female athlete. As implants have some sort of liquid in them, either silicon or gel, they are an added weight that a female athlete has to carry around with her while she is competing. How wide an implant is can also affect an athlete’s performance because of the fact that they can restrict movement of her arms. But doctors also say that if a female athlete wants to get plastic surgery done then she should consult her doctor and work out a size and fit that will work best for her and compliment her body.
The issue of femininity and athletics comes into the picture again with the issue of breast size. Female athletes have to live in a world that is obsessed with the issue of women’s bodies. Women have to look a certain way and they have to be thin but they also have to have curves. All magazines on the stands scream this to women all over the world. This can really affect female athletes because a lot of them are young women who want to excel at their sports and make great careers for themselves but at the same time they also want to conform to what society thinks women should look like. Hopefully the day will come when a female sports star is judged only on her performance on the field and not what her body looks like.
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