What good is it to buy a large sectional sofa if you live in a studio apartment?

This idea translates into every aspect of life, particularly the subject I am tackling today: Breast augmentation.

Flip the pages of any magazine or tune in to any entertainment show, and you can see an array of silicone implants on many of Hollywood’s leading ladies. It appears to the naked eye that the Silicone Valley we used to know as Central California can now be referred to the countless number of women making their way to a plastic surgeon’s office to get pumped up.

One thing you may not know is there are women who are going under the knife not for the means of looking like a voluptuous Victoria’s Secret model, but to in fact reduce the size of their breasts.

On the American Society of Plastic Surgeons website, breast reduction surgery has been the fifth highest reconstructive surgery from 2004 to 2007. There were an average of 107,398 breast reduction procedures performed each year. When compared to the average 307,972 breast augmentations performed each year during the same time, it may not seem as great, but the number is still high enough to be significant.

Many women are fortunate enough to be born well endowed more than the average woman. Thanks to their mothers and grandmothers, many women develop large breasts due to genetic factors.

I have met women, who as a result of a genetic lottery, have the large breasts many young women pay to have, and they are secure with them. Simultaneously, I have come across genetically well-endowed women, myself included, who thought their large breasts were a curse.

“It feels like a thousand needles poking my spine,” “I feel like a hunchback,” “It’s the first thing men look at,” “Nothing fits right,” “I don’t feel comfortable in my own body,” These were some of the reactions I had heard over the years.

I have personally never found anything good about having excessively large breasts. Other than shoulder pain, back pain, and being gawked at by men, the detriments of having large breasts outweigh the benefits. There is only a certain amount of weight your back and shoulders are capable of carrying everyday before they give out and refuse to hold it up anymore.

Along with the physical repercussions of having large breasts, psychological and emotional effects come along with it. Adolescent girls have enough issues to deal with in high school to add large breasts into the mix. It is a very sensitive time for a girl when her body is changing, and it could be harder to adjust to the changes when she is the only girl in her class with a D-cup.

Furthermore, many young women who get breast augmentation could also suffer from the same pains as women with naturally large breasts. There is nothing healthy about a woman with a petite frame having a D-cup. As absurd as that notion may sound, there are women who fit that description. Either they are aware of the heavy load they are paying a surgeon to insert into their body, or they are living in a man’s fantasy world.

As great as having large breasts may be, they’re not all they’re cracked up to be. I myself know what it feels like to carry a cement block permanently placed on each shoulder.

I was fortunate enough to blossom quite early in life and be one of the only girls in my sixth grade class who could fill out a bra. Even though most of my friends kept insisting I was lucky to have them, deep down I didn’t feel so lucky.

I went through middle school and high school hiding under big T-shirts and sweater, as I have always found an excuse not to participate in P.E. class. I figured when I started college, I would break out of my shell. That theory lasted about two seconds.

For my spring break trip during freshman year of college, I went to New York for a few days. By the end of the second day, all the walking had taken a toll on my back and I had reached my breaking point.

“The first thing I do when we get home is I’m calling a doctor and making an appointment,” I told my mother.

I’d always been scared of getting the surgery, but at that point it seemed like my only option.

Before I knew it, the surgery date had been set.

The whole experience was quite surreal. It’s been about two years and I still remember everything, including the painful recovery and the feeling I had when I was able to fit into a medium sized shirt.

I always get people asking me if it was worth going through with the surgery, and I always say I would do it all over again.

Having been at both ends of the spectrum, I can’t imagine why any woman would want to carry all that additional weight. Women have argued with me about their reasons for getting implants on the basis of beauty and wanting to feel and look more like a woman than a girl. As justifiable as their stance may be, I don’t see why any woman would feel the need to go under the knife to enhance their beauty.

Much to mainstream media’s dismay, not all women have the urge to run and buy bigger breasts. Some women forgoe the idea all together. There are women out there who prefer to have a smaller cup size rather than have over-inflated flotation devices attached to their bodies.