‘No Bra Day’ Unhooks Cancer Prevention & Decency

However, many Indonesians — among them film star Fivey Rachmawat, popularly known as Five-Vi, and actress Andi Soraya — have roundly rejected this flaunting of the unfastened female form, saying the celebration not only offends decency, but distracts from messages that deserve real attention.

Fivey ranks among world’s Top 100 Sexiest Artists according to FHM and reportedly sports a size 36B bra. That intimate undergarment was reportedly kept clasped on Monday’s “No Bra Day.” Fivey is an outspoken advocate for breast cancer awareness and maternal and child health, and her criticisms of “No Bra Day” find support among Indonesia’s top doctors.

“There’s absolutely no link between wearing bras and breast cancer. It’s just nonsense,” Ufara Zuwasti, a global health practitioner and medical doctor at an executive branch agency in Jakarta, said.

In the 1995 book “Dressed To Kill,” medical anthropologists Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer speculated that underwire bras disrupt the flow of lymph nodes around the armpit, thereby causing a buildup of carcinogenic toxins in the breast tissue.

“That theory is, biologically, implausible,” Ufara says.

“The University of Washington just did a retrospective cohort study of 1,500 post-menopausal women, including 590 women diagnosed with invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC), 454 suffering from invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) and 469 who were cancer-free. They interviewed the women about their bra-wearing habits and found a non-statistically significant increase.”

That study was published Sept. 5 in “Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention,” a journal of the American Association for Cancer. The researchers confirmed the findings of a 1991 study that discounted bras as a cancer risk, but found some evidence for a relationship with breast cup size and obesity.

“Women wear bras for aesthetic reasons — and for a feeling of support and comfort,” Nahla Shihab, a dermatology resident at Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital (RSCM) said.

“I think [No Bra Day] was just made up by perverts,” Nahla added.

“If your bra is bothering you, go get yourself measured for something that fits better.”

“No Bra Day distracts people from learning how to reduce their risk of breast cancer and how to get tested at low cost. Those are better messages,” Renny Anggia, a resident in the obstetrics and gynecology department at RSCM said.

“Anyone can get breast cancer, but they can reduce their risk a number of ways,” Renny added. “That includes proper nutrition and exercise — especially among older women — which can cut your cancer risk by up to 20 percent.”

“Breastfeeding is another way to reduce your cancer risk,” Ufara said. “Indonesian women especially can benefit from that, since many fewer women breastfeed their children here than elsewhere.”

“Mothers who breastfeed for a total of two years across their lifetimes get about twice the benefit” than those who breastfed just one year, Nahala added, citing a 2002 Lancet study. “Women who breastfed for a lifetime total of more than two years get even more benefit.”

“Breastfeeding lowers the risk of both estrogen receptor-positive and estrogen receptor-negative breast cancers,” Nahla said.

Breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer affecting women in Indonesia, according to the Ministry of Health’s 2013 Basic Health Survey, affecting 0.5 percent of women nationwide (breast cancer was recently surpassed by cervical cancer, which affects 0.8 percent of women in Indonesia).

No national cancer registry exists that would enable Indonesian public health officials to count the number or location of breast or other cancer cases, but studies from 2008 and 2007 estimate about 700,000 women had been diagnosed with breast cancer.