My girlfriend, who has two daughters in their late teens, shared an article with me about BPA found in sports bras and it's quite alarming
We hear about BPA in plastics all the time and we know that we need to avoid them in baby bottles and our food containers. BPA really is found in so many places, including receipts from stores. Did you know that? Yes, we'll get into that in a little bit.
If you have active daughters, or if you're very active yourself, then you might be as alarmed as I was when I first learned about this. So I'll give you the rundown. The Center for Environmental Health recently sent a legal notice to eight different brands that carry sports bras and six brands that have athletic shirts because the clothing items that were tested, exposed individuals to up to 22 times the safe limit of BPA, according to California law. It's brands that you likely know very, very well and wear all the time. Like Athleta, Nike, Pink, North Face, Brooks, Phila, and for the active wear shirts, North Face, Brooks, Mizuno, Athleta, New Balance, and Reebok. These were all the brands that were sent this legal notice because their athletic shirts and their sports bras tested with BPA levels 22 times the safe limit.
You may be wondering who the Center for Environmental Health is?
Well, they are a California based nonprofit that is dedicated to protecting the environment, improving human health and supporting environmentally sound practices. California proposition 65 Is the Safe Drinking and Toxic Enforcement Act, and that is what is regulating BPA here.
So you may be wondering, what are these sports bras and athletic wear made of?
Well, they're made of polyester with spandex. And as you may or may not know, polyester is very similar to plastic. So they are clearly using plastic with plastics and that's why there is this BPA within clothing. Sometimes you'll find that brands are actually advertising this. They're saying that their shoes are made of recycled plastic, or their yoga pants are made of recycled plastic. And initially, you might think, Oh, this is such a great thing. It's so great, that instead of the plastic bottles going into the ocean, they are actually going to be reused for something they're going to be recycled and reused. Which is great, except for when we think about the chemicals that could potentially be in those plastic bottles, and how they might end up in our clothing and what that might do to us.
If you're not familiar with the problem with BPA, BPA is not good because it mimics our hormones, and it can block other hormone receptors. So it can actually alter the way that our hormones work within our bodies. And that can have negative health effects on us. As you may or may not know, our hormone system runs and controls all the organs of our body. And so for hormone disruptors, and there are plenty of other episodes about hormone disruptors in Toxin Free Talk, I encourage you to go find them. They can eventually, with this hormone disruption lead to problems with our health, including brain health, our reproductive system, cancer, the list goes on. So hormone disruptors are not a good thing and BPA is one of them.
We are exposed to BPA through ingesting it because it has been leached into our food and water or other drinks through packaging. It can actually be absorbed through our skin. Like I was saying earlier, receipts often have BPA in them. This is from the Illegal Toxic Threats program director at the Center for Environmental Health, Kaya Alan Sugarman. She said that
“Studies have shown that BPA can be absorbed through skin and end up in the bloodstream after handling a receipt paper for seconds or a few minutes at a time. Sports bras and athletic shorts are worn for hours at a time and you're meant to sweat in them so it is concerning to be finding such high levels of BPA in our clothing.”
Of course having two daughters who wear athletic wear all the time, who wear sports bras almost every single day because they're so active and athletic and they have volleyball practice and basketball practice and, and all the things, I started to look for sports bras that are organic or not made with plastic, polyester, and spandex. So far, I'm still struggling to find any. I did buy them some new bras that are organic cotton for their everyday wear. But I'm still on the search for organic bras that are specific to sports bras. I know I need new sports bras too, because I also exercise frequently. I wear a sports bra not quite as many hours out of the day as my daughters do, but I still wear them quite frequently and it's time to clean them out. And it's time to get new. If you have an organic sports bra that you know and love and can trust, please email me atmegan@detox.design, I would love to hear what brands you like.
So there are some brands I do know of that have safer, cleaner ingredients. Or I should say cleaner fabrics. I'm so used to saying clean ingredients. This is what I’ve found, but I encourage you to do some digging on your own!
pact organic clothing- Great stuff. I switched to their underwear a few years ago, and I love them. And I'm slowly adapting to their bras as well.
Vibrant (affiliate link) - they call themselves certified clean on their website and while I do trust that they are a cleaner option, I'm not such a big fan of the materials that they use, because they're still using nylon and spandex. We know that Nylon is a petroleum based product and so it's not as natural as say organic cotton or organic bamboo or something that's made of natural materials. So while I do think it's a better option, I don't think that it is necessarily the best option out there. But at the same time, as I said earlier, it is very hard to find these types of products
Reprise- they are plant based active wear that has their organic cotton certified by GOTS, the Global Organic Textile Standard.
Ripple Yoga- Also uses GOTS certified organic cotton.
Nagnata- which is a sustainably minded brand, as they call themselves.
So those are some other options for you if you're looking for some active wear that is not going to have BPA or other chemicals within it. I hope I opened your mind to why we need to pay attention to what our clothing is made of, and hopefully the Center for Environmental Health will bring more awareness to this issue .
I've talked about microplastics in the past as being a big part of the issue here when it comes to material. This new research that has highlighted the issue with BPA in sports bras and inactive wear is really just highlighting it again. That we need to pay attention to how our clothing and our material is made and where it's coming from.
Something that we always need to be paying attention to is where things are made, what they're made of and who is making them.
As I always say, I know this can be so overwhelming, but it's just one choice at a time. It's just one change at a time. So if you're feeling totally overwhelmed listening to this, all you have to think about is the next time you go to buy a new pair of underwear, do a little research and choose underwear that you have found is up to your personal eco-friendly and toxin-free standards. The next time you go to buy a sports bra, you do a little research, you dig a little, you find more information about this, and you choose better.
Let's start making this planet happier and healthier. One step at a time.
