Bigger clothes.
That picture up above is of British school uniform supplier Nadeem Ahmed holding the size 44inch waist trousers he's been selling to kids as young as 13.
In fact a recent report describes how some of Britain's largest retailers of childrens' clothing are joining together to fund a study into just how big Britain's children have gotten. They're going to use high-tech scanners to measure shapes and sizes with the aim to roll out better fitting clothing for ever-larger children.
Yet you'll still find folks vehemently denying increasing rates of childhood obesity.
I guess the clothing industry is in on this giant public health conspiracy.
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I'm interested in the article entitled, "Four big, fat myths." I've heard some of these arguments elsewhere and must say that they are compelling. I'm trying to educate myself about the 'obesity epidemic' but am just starting out. Is there another article similar to this one telling the other side of the story? That debunks the 'four big, fat myths?'
ReplyDeleteYup - peer reviewed published medical evidence.
ReplyDeleteThe clothing industry has been in on it for a while, just not in the ways most BBWs and BBMs would think of. (It is increasingly daunting to find shops or departments that cater to the "big and tall" man or the "Rubensesque" woman -- especially where higher-end clothing is concerned.)
ReplyDeleteThe "proof" of this conspiracy lies in the gradual increase of standard dimensions for a given numerical size in women's commercial home-sewing pattern between about 1950 and the current day. There has been an "inflation" of approximately two numerical sizes during that period of time --meaning that a size 12 pattern today is equivalent to a size 16 pattern from 1950.
Ready-to-wear manufacturers, spurred on by the vanity sizing of upscale manufacturers in the late 1980's and early 1990's, inflated sizes in even their lower-market items such that the purchased garments of a modern woman who sews will often be marked as one or two sizes smaller than that of the patterns she purchases. The last time I saw specs for ready-to-wear manufacturers, a size 10 was designed for a 28" waist -- which is a size 14 pattern for the home-sewing market... or a size 18 pattern from 1950.
In terms of burying our collective heads in the sand, I pose this indication: the largest "standard size" woman's garment -- 16 Misses commercial home-sewing pattern -- indicates a 30" waist. This is smaller than the 35" waist considered as an indicator of increased cardiovascular risk in women. Which suggests that we are not nearly as vigilant as we should be concerning weight, weight distribution, and health.
So wait... does that mean that people are in fact getting larger, or that clothing manufacturers are creating a myth?
ReplyDeleteWhy isn't this a reasonable response to childhood obesity?
ReplyDeleteThose children who are obese, even if they lose weight, need to be clothed, no?
Or should they just stay out of school until and unless they can fit into the existing sizes?
And then we just stop making the largest size, and then the next largest size, until all we have are non-obese sizes? And that will work?
Maybe snarkiness will be the best response to childhood obesity. Wait, that hasn't worked, either.
To anonymous: People are getting larger, but instead of the clothing manufacturers keeping the same size, so you KNOW you're getting larger, they're making the size numbers smaller for the same dimensions, so you think you are a lot SMALLER than you are. And at the same time, if you are larger than these new expanded "normal" sizes, it is becoming harder and harder to find clothes unless you sew them yourself. Oh, but then you need to find fabric, and all the fabric stores have been shutting down, too...
ReplyDeleteBrenda~
ReplyDeleteI didn't see anything about faked sizes in this blog post. It said, in fact, that making bigger clothes is NOT the best response to childhood obesity. It said that the clothing manufacturers are doing studies to make their clothing for obese children better fitting.
While some kids *may* need to lose weight or gain weight to be a normal BMI, they still need clothes that fit them well. That's all.