• Question: why do women have boobs and why dont men ?

    Asked by fayeadamou to Cat, Daz, Holly, Johnson, Pamela on 22 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Cat O'Connor

      Cat O'Connor answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hi Fayeadamou,

      Guys can have boobs too….but thankfully they are not as ‘boobie’ as girls!

      It’s all down to the way our body is designed. As I’m sure you’re aware guys and girls bodies are very different. Apart from the obvious reproductive system differences, we’re also different in terms of the shape of some of our bones and in the tissues that lie under our skin!

      As a tiny, just fertilised foetus, boy and girl babies both grow breast in the womb. That’s why as young kids boys and girls chests look the same. Then at puberty the fatty tissue that makes boobs all squishy feeling grows only in woman because of a hormone called oestrogen. This doesn’t happen in guys so their boobs stay small. Also underneath all the squishiness is a gland called the mammary glad that lets woman produce milk to feed babies, and again what causes a person to make milk is all due to hormones released in your body when you are pregnant! So the reason that men have nipples but don’t have boobs and can’t make milk is because they were created with the ability to have proper boobs but once the foetus becomes a boy, it doesn’t develop them any further!

      Hope this makes sense! Please comment or ask another question if you want to chat about this some more!

      Cat

    • Photo: Darren Braddick

      Darren Braddick answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      Hi fayeadamou!

      Cat answered this pretty well! Both sexes do actually have boobs, but the function is totally different! In fact it is often questioned why guy’s boobs exist at all, because they no longer serve any function in life. The reason for a womens boobs is simple though – it can offer natural milk which is an excellent source of nutrition for very young babies. It is often the best thing for babies to drink! But your question is good, because there is arguably no reason why guys couldn’t also do this role, but that is the way evolution has taken the human race! It has decided that women will do this and men cannot. The development of the sexes is down to massive differences in the level of chemicals called hormones, and these control the growth of sexual organs of the body, including the boobs, also called breasts. In guys, those hormones don’t do this, and they then do not grow breast tissue, and therefore have no boobs!

      I hope this helps answer your question!

      Daz

Comments