Female Body Shape - Measurements

Measurements

The circumferences of a woman's bust, waist, and hips, and their ratios, were widely used to define her basic shape in Western cultures for several decades after World War II, and are still used in some North American subcultures for this purpose. These are sometimes described as banana, pear, apple, or hourglass shapes, though other shortcut terms are also used. The measurements are generally described using three numbers to expressing a woman's dimensions.

The band measurement is usually measured around the women's torso, immediately below her breasts at the inframammary fold, parallel to the floor. The cup size is determined by measuring across the crest of the breast and calculating the difference between that measurement and the band measurement. The waist is measured at the midpoint between the lower margin of the last palpable rib and the top of the iliac crest. The hips are measured at the largest circumference of the hips and buttocks.

It is said that the female body usually inflects inward towards the waist around the middle of the abdomen between the costal margins and the pelvic crests. The waist is typically smaller than the bust and hips, unless there is a high proportion of body fat distributed around it. How much the bust or hips inflect inward, towards the waist, determines a woman's structural shape. The hourglass shape is considered by many cultures to be the ideal or usual female shape, though only about 8% of women have this shape.