--- title: Breast Cancer Risk Factors: Weight Gain description: Trading in smaller skirt sizes for bigger ones is linked to a higher risk of breast cancer, finds a new study published in BMJ Open.... canonical: https://time.com/3426997/skirt-size-breast-cancer/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-25T16:51:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:23:56.460Z article:section: Health og:title: Waist Size Linked to Breast Cancer Risk og:description: Trading in smaller skirt sizes for bigger ones is linked to a higher risk of breast cancer, finds a new study published in BMJ Open.... og:url: https://time.com/3426997/skirt-size-breast-cancer/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Waist Size Linked to Breast Cancer Risk twitter:description: Trading in smaller skirt sizes for bigger ones is linked to a higher risk of breast cancer, finds a new study published in BMJ Open.... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Waist Size Linked to Breast Cancer, Study Finds > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Sep 25, 2014 4:51 PM UTC  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Sep 25, 2014 4:51 PM UTC Trading in smaller skirt sizes for bigger ones is linked to a higher risk of breast cancer, finds a new [study](http://bmjopen.bmj.com/lookup/doi/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-005400) published in BMJ Open. But it’s what underneath the skirt—an expanding waist—that counts. Research already suggests that gaining weight puts women more at risk for breast cancer, since [fat tissue spurs the production of estrogen,](http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/22/dropping-a-few-pounds-could-lower-breast-cancer-risk/) which feeds the growth of breast tumors. The kind of fat around your waist seems to be especially telling: Some [studies](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22031525) have found that waist circumference is better than BMI at assessing the risk for many conditions. In an attempt to give women an “easy to understand message,” researchers of this new study measured waist thickness by the number on their subjects’ skirt tags. The study looked at data from about 93,000 mostly overweight, postmenopausal women in the U.K. Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer. After gathering various kinds of health data from the women—like general health, cancer status, and, yes, skirt size—for about three years, they analyzed the results. An increase in skirt size was the single most predictive measure of breast cancer risk, the study concluded. When women went up a single skirt size over a 10-year span between their mid 20s and mid 60s, they were shown to have a 33% greater risk of developing breast cancer after menopause. Buying two skirt sizes up during that same period was linked to a 77% increased risk. The size of your skirt might seem like a silly stand-in for measuring belly fat, but skirt size “has been shown to provide a reliable and feasible estimate of waist circumference at the population level,” the study reads. Don’t get too married to the results, though. The study acknowledges that skirt sizing probably varied over the years, as any woman who’s ever shopped at more than one store can tell you. Forget changing skirt size in a decade—you can change skirt size in a minute if you just try a different store, so it should take more than a sudden switch from a 4 to a 6 to freak you out. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3426997/skirt-size-breast-cancer/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3426997/skirt-size-breast-cancer/"},"headline":"Waist Size Linked to Breast Cancer, Study Finds","datePublished":"2014-09-25T16:51:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T10:23:56.460Z","description":"Trading in smaller skirt sizes for bigger ones is linked to a higher risk of breast cancer, finds a new study published in BMJ Open....","url":"https://time.com/3426997/skirt-size-breast-cancer/","keywords":["Cancer","Breast Cancer","weight","Clothing"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mandy Oaklander","jobTitle":"Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/cancer/","name":"Cancer"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3426997/skirt-size-breast-cancer/","name":"Waist Size Linked to Breast Cancer, Study Finds"}}]}] ```