7 ms·

The issue is not the sizes, the issue is the obesity epidemic. According to CDC [1] the average woman in the US is 5'3" weighing 172lbs. That's not just overwei

by diath 8mo ago

The issue is not the sizes, the issue is the obesity epidemic. According to CDC [1] the average woman in the US is 5'3" weighing 172lbs. That's not just overweight but rather first degree of obesity. I guess you could argue that sizes should catch up to the demands when half of your population is straight up fat but I feel like a better angle would be educating people that 1500 kcal worth of Starbucks sugar for breakfast is not healthy. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm

munificent 8mo ago
> I feel like a better angle would be educating people that 1500 kcal worth of Starbucks sugar for breakfast is not healthy. An even better angle is educating Starbucks to stop selling unhealthy garbage. The idea that all blame rests on individuals and corporations are blame-free is crazy. They have way more agency over what we consume than individuals do.
- kccqzy 8mo ago
  That Starbucks probably saved my life after I made an unwise decision to bike 40 miles on an empty stomach. Bonking is real, and I’m glad they are allowed to sell the sugary beverages to prevent me from bonking. Oh and I also fainted the first time I donated blood, because I did not know I should not donate blood while fasting. Again, sugary drinks helped.
  - shimman 8mo ago
    You really can't discern between a healthy portion of sugar and an unhealthy portion of sugar? I can assure you it should be way less than what they are serving. Especially since society will bare these costs in a variety of unexpected ways, Starbucks needs to be compelled into doing so. They broke the societal compact, they have to be punished.
    - kccqzy 8mo ago
      I can discern it very well. And indeed I think for the people like me who can discern it, stores should be able to sell these sugary beverages. The same amount of sugar is unhealthy when I’m sedentary, but absolutely necessary in other cases.
      - shimman 8mo ago
        That's fine but people like you are an extreme minority and I'd rather the government regulate the greed from these addiction companies rather than forcing tax payers to foot the bill. Corporate welfare has to end.
      - queenkjuul 8mo ago
        You could just buy two less-sugary ones
  - Rendello 8mo ago
    I bonked in the middle of a 100km ride on a rail trail through farmer's fields. I thought I'd had enough food, since the same amount was sufficient for the initial trip out a few days earlier, but it wasn't. It was the return journey of my first big bike trip, and it was absolute hell after I bonked. I'd ride for twenty minutes, then lie on the ground for ten. When I was laying on the ground I'd be searching the vegetation for anything that looked vaguely edible. Crazy how a glucose drop can sneak up and humble you so quickly!
  - tikhonj 8mo ago
    There's a lot of area on the spectrum between where we are today and "sugary beverages are all banned". For example, Starbucks could limit the sizes it sells and advertises—you'd still be able to have as much sugar as you would like by buying multiple drinks, but it would raise the activation energy needed to do that. Making the healthier choice the path of least resistance works wonders.
  - lxgr 8mo ago
    By that logic, should Starbucks also sell life-saving insulin and epi pens?
- oceanplexian 8mo ago
  > The idea that all blame rests on individuals and corporations are blame-free is crazy. You know they have Starbucks in other countries without an obesity crisis? No one is forcing you or I to order a particular drink at Starbucks; they literally put the number of calories directly next to the menu item. The blame is 100% on the individuals making their own health decisions.
  - WarmWash 8mo ago
    Yeah but progressive ideals are a much harder sell if people have to take responsibility for their actions. "Others should pay for my mobility scooter because others keeps feeding me junk food" and all that. Then again, free will is an illusion, so...
  - munificent 8mo ago
    > The blame is 100% on the individuals making their own health decisions. If you put a pile of junk food on the floor, your pet will eat it until they make themselves sick. We are smarter than many animals and have more discipline. But we are still animals and do not have unlimited executive function. The people who architect the environment of incentives that surround us bear some amount of responsibility for the behavior those incentives create. Denying that is denying that we are living beings subject to all of the same limitations as any other mortal animal. We are not spherical rational actors in a vacuum.
    - sleazebreeze 8mo ago
      You can't control the incentives, you can only control your reactions to those incentives.
      - munificent 8mo ago
        We can control the incentives! The idea that we should completely cede the environment and public space to corporations and give them total autonomy over the incentives that surround us is crazy.
- burgerzzz 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - toomuchtodo 8mo ago
    GLP-1s disprove this to an extent. Personal responsibility is based on a fallacy, it’s just brain chemistry. So give everyone GLP-1s to cast the shadow of personality responsibility (reduction in adverse reward center operations, broadly speaking) through better brain chemistry. Existence is hard, we can twiddle the wetware to make it less hard.
    - whackernews 8mo ago
      Eh? I mean, this sounds potentially interesting but I don’t understand it!
      - toomuchtodo 8mo ago
        “We fixed the glitch.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12742762/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12742762/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031938424001677 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003193842... https://time.com/7340807/history-debate-insurance-glp-1s/ https://time.com/7340807/history-debate-insurance-glp-1s/ https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/the-growing-scientific-case-for-using https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/the-growing-scientific-cas... The consistency that I'm hearing from all across patient groups is gain of control, whereas previously, there was a loss of control… All of a sudden they're able to step back and say, 'oh, well I had this shopping phenomenon that was going on, gambling, addiction, or alcoholism, and all of a sudden, it just stopped,' - Dr. Gitanjali Srivastava, Vanderbilt Medical Center
        deleted 8mo ago
        [deleted]
    - diath 8mo ago
      The only thing that GLP-1 agonists prove is that CICO does indeed work - if you force yourself into a caloric deficit through the inhibition of hunger hormones using drugs that you will lose weight. It has nothing to do with people choosing to eat highly processed unhealthy foods over healthier options. When you're on Ozempic or peptides like Retatrutide/Tirzepatide you don't think "I will not eat a bag of chips today because it's unhealthy and calorie dense", you simply don't think about eating because your feeling of hunger is inhibited.
- c22 8mo ago
  This is an extremely hazardous opinion. It is true that corporations spend vast resources attempting to lure consumers into their webs but you do have agency! You can resist! Vote with your wallet and strip these bad actors of the power you handed to them when you gave up.
- raincole 8mo ago
  You know multinational brands sell sweeter products in the US than in other countries? It's not that all the rest of the world has sugar tax or something. It's customer profile. [0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32576300/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32576300/ [1]: https://www.itiger.com/news/1184332557 https://www.itiger.com/news/1184332557
- albedoa 8mo ago
  > They have way more agency over what we consume than individuals do. I walk by Starbucks every day without consuming 1500 kcal worth of Starbucks. You think that's due to their agency??
altairprime 8mo ago
I do support addressing obesity (see my elsethreads), but duly noted that it’s not a cure-all panacea for the problems faced by women. Obesity does not address the nine different U.S. body shapes; one can be obese and rectangular, or obese and spoon, or obese and triangle. Resolving obesity is a worthy cause, but will only reduce or remove the impact of size inflation on ‘vanity’ sizing as a whole, without addressing the significant disparity of sizes between manufacturers or the near-total lack of products for the eight non-hourglass body shapes.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
zetanor 8mo ago
Despite the article highlighting only people of width as the "millions of people who are excluded from standard size ranges", sizing is also a problem in the other direction: it's practically impossible to find well-fitting clothes if you're tall and in decent shape. To your point, though, perhaps there was a time when "large" and "x-large" meant "slightly tall" and "quite tall" rather than "slightly tall plus obese" and "quite tall plus very obese".
- mauvehaus 8mo ago
  As a dude who is 6’ 1” or thereabouts with a 32” or thereabouts waist and a 34” (or thereabouts) inseam: can confirm. Carhartts size up a waist size to account for shrinking, and I can almost reliably find a 34/34. Finding 32/34 in other pants is a challenge. On the subject of vanity sizing, I’m 15 pounds heavier than I was 20 years ago, and I still wear a 32/34. Which is why all those measurements are qualified above. Finding shirts that fit is a similar challenge. Fitted shirts can usually be found in 16 34-35 with an athletic cut. Letter sizes are a total crapshoot. Sometimes I’m a L, sometimes an M. If I’m an M across the gut, frequently the shoulders are far too tight. Not that I’m complaining as such, but I do agree that the sizes encompass too little information about body shape.
  - mikepurvis 8mo ago
    I'm 6'0 34/32 and even still feel some of this; L shirts are baggy, but M shirts (and sweaters) are often too short in the length and arms, especially after a wash. And it's not my imagination; I have a few custom made dress shirts from Maxwell's and those absolutely do feel correct in both dimensions. A tall medium where available will typically work for me but most brands don't have it at all and those that do it's a special order so what's even the point of being in the store; I might add well have just done a blind buy online from home.
  - strken 8mo ago
    As a dude who is 6'7" with a 35" waist (34" in brands that do vanity sizing) and an inseam that can handle a 34" even if it's not quite long enough, I agree that it's tough. One of the more annoying problems is that the MT shirt size doesn't seem to exist where I shop and LT flares outwards at the bottom. At least it's pretty easy to get a shirt taken in.
selfmodruntime 8mo ago
Yea, if you read between the lines in this article this stands out. Over half of all adult women don't fit into regular sizes. "Plus size" is not normal.
Insanity 8mo ago
Yeah I wanted to point out the same. This sizing problem is not as prevalent outside of the US/Mexico (leaders in obesity). It’s less prevalent in EU and even less so in some East Asian countries.
panic 8mo ago
The article points out that the problem is deeper than this: > Once I compared my personalized sloper to commercial patterns and retail garments, I had a revelation: clothes were never made to fit bodies like mine. It didn’t matter how much weight I gained or lost, whether I contorted my body or tried to buy my way into styles that “flatter” my silhouette, there was no chance that clothes would ever fit perfectly on their own.
- throwerxyz 8mo ago
  [flagged]
8organicbits 8mo ago
I'll point out a statistical hazard here. While CDC lists the average height and weight at 5'3" and 172 lbs, the medians appear to be 5'3" and 161 lbs. That's a BMI of 28 and is considered overweight (25-30), not obese. Although I'll mention BMI is a pretty rough measure to begin with.
- altairprime 8mo ago
  To provide context for those still using BMI as the sole 'fat or not' discriminator — the CDC published an n=9894 longitudinal study* about ten years ago; generally summarizing figure 1, the median starts around 0.53 +/- gender variance at 20-29, peaks at 0.62 +/- at 70-79, and then begins decreasing from there; however, they found that BMI fails to represent the 'fat' levels improperly (to our detriment) for people in their 40s (figure 2), as older human bodies tend to lose fat in areas (i.e. arms) that have no significant bearing on overall health, but gain fat in the abdomen (which other studies have shown does correspond to increasing cardiovascular issues). They show median waist-to-height-ratio data as 'monotonically increasing abdominal adipose tissue throughout the years of adulthood but decreasing mass in non-abdominal regions', which bodes very poorly for clothing manufacturers — because not only do you have to account for nine body shapes in women, but you also have to account for age skewing the waist-to-length ratios of the body shape further. It would be particularly interesting to repeat this sizing study using the garment length to identify where it falls in 'height' median for women, and then identifying what 'age' median the garment's waistline is calibrated for. I can certainly guess what the results will be from personal experience on a per-retailer basis, and it would be a useful way to mathematically identify 'underserved niches' in today's market to target with appropriately-fit clothing (without a body scan). * doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0172245 (2017) https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/44820 https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/44820
  - vpribish 8mo ago
    “BMI fails to represent the 'fat' levels improperly” - what is that supposed to say. I’m just done trying to understand things that the writer didn’t even read.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
queenkjuul 8mo ago
You can be in perfect shape and still not find clothes that fit. The issue IS the sizes.
- bloaf 8mo ago
  Expecting mass-market, lowest-common-denominator products to be tailored to your special circumstance is the issue. Normalize going to a tailor, instead of grumbling about how you aren't benefiting enough from the sweatshops mass retailers are running.
  - WesleyJohnson 8mo ago
    But they're not lowest-common-denominator products. If they were, clothing designers would be tailoring clothes for a rectangular figure. The article clearly shows that only 12% of women have that "hourglass" figure and yet, by design, almost all the clothing manufacturers are tailoring their clothes for this shape, regardless of size.
    - bloaf 8mo ago
      You think companies are all deliberately leaving big money on the table by making hourglass clothes as an oopsie? They're doing it because people are buying clothes based on superficial appearance, and most people prefer the aesthetics of the hourglass shape. Rectangular clothing doesn't sell as well because it doesn't look as good on a mannequin even if it fits better.
mikepurvis 8mo ago
Yeah, I didn't want to be nasty about it, but the article saying that 37" is the median adult American woman's waist measurement is... pretty shocking. Like, I'm a 6' slightly out of shape dude and my waist fluctuates from 33-35". You'd have to be pretty large to have a feminine figure and have the narrow part be 2" wider than my widest section.
- jrmg 8mo ago
  Have you measured your waist? Vanity sizing is a thing in men’s clothes too.
- wahnfrieden 8mo ago
  No you're not. That's the size your brands of choice advertise to you so you think that you're slimmer than you are.
  - zonkerdonker 8mo ago
    For anyone else wondering. Im also a 33 or 34 in pretty much any brand, just measured my waistline (where my pants usually sit), 38.5 inches. Never knew!
  - mikepurvis 8mo ago
    Ha, TIL
tirant 8mo ago
I am really surprised about the sharp increase in body size by age in the USA. I have just anecdotal experience here in Europe, but I know for a fact that all the females in my family have kept the same size since they were 16-18 years old. That’s also my experience with the male side of the family.
- Gigachad 8mo ago
  Most adults in the US become physically inactive after they leave school/collage and move to an area where they have to drive everywhere, while sitting in an office the rest of the day. While I'm well aware weight gain requires over consumption, I feel there is an under appreciated importance on being somewhat mobile rather than sitting/laying down for 23 hours a day
  - 0xy 8mo ago
    You can live a completely sedentary lifestyle and lose or maintain weight through eating normal amounts of food. Exercise is not the problem, overeating consistently is. For women, it's very common to consume sugary coffee flavored drinks and this behavior is glamorized on social media. For men, the problem is worse.
    - Gigachad 8mo ago
      In theory sure, but teenagers love sugary drinks and burgers too, sugar drinks exist all over the world too where obesity rates are significantly lower. While you can be slim while sitting all day doing nothing, being physically active is massively important for your health. The fact that the particular area you live in determines so much of the probability a person would be obese suggests the location plays a huge part. While sugary drinks are marketed and popular everywhere.
FarmerPotato 8mo ago
I remember a survey of explanatory variables for obesity. The variable that explained more was the size of corn subsidies. The hypothesis was: if you produce it, it will be consumed (Say's Law). Lower prices mean larger quantities demanded. (I know, it sounds like a confounding variable, you need a cross-sectional regression)
WesleyJohnson 8mo ago
The article has mounds of data that to speak to exactly how the clothing sizes ARE the issue. Inconsistencies within brands, across brands, shifting vanity sizes, and shapes designed to fit only 12% of women. And yet, the top comment is about obesity... Yes, obesity is clearly an epidemic. But discounting the entire article's premise to point that out?
- segmondy 8mo ago
  Thanks, any one with kids experiences this. It's so frustrating. For the same kid you could literally have 5 different sizes that are the same. So you have to keep track of sizes by brand. Trying a new brand is often an adventure. Worse of all, if you come across a sale and rush to take advantage of it. You could end up having lots of items shipped only to have to return every single one of them. It's a mess.

by diath 8mo ago

munificent 8mo ago

> I feel like a better angle would be educating people that 1500 kcal worth of Starbucks sugar for breakfast is not healthy. An even better angle is educating Starbucks to stop selling unhealthy garbage. The idea that all blame rests on individuals and corporations are blame-free is crazy. They have way more agency over what we consume than individuals do.

kccqzy 8mo ago
That Starbucks probably saved my life after I made an unwise decision to bike 40 miles on an empty stomach. Bonking is real, and I’m glad they are allowed to sell the sugary beverages to prevent me from bonking. Oh and I also fainted the first time I donated blood, because I did not know I should not donate blood while fasting. Again, sugary drinks helped.
- shimman 8mo ago
  You really can't discern between a healthy portion of sugar and an unhealthy portion of sugar? I can assure you it should be way less than what they are serving. Especially since society will bare these costs in a variety of unexpected ways, Starbucks needs to be compelled into doing so. They broke the societal compact, they have to be punished.
  - kccqzy 8mo ago
    I can discern it very well. And indeed I think for the people like me who can discern it, stores should be able to sell these sugary beverages. The same amount of sugar is unhealthy when I’m sedentary, but absolutely necessary in other cases.
    - shimman 8mo ago
      That's fine but people like you are an extreme minority and I'd rather the government regulate the greed from these addiction companies rather than forcing tax payers to foot the bill. Corporate welfare has to end.
    - queenkjuul 8mo ago
      You could just buy two less-sugary ones
- Rendello 8mo ago
  I bonked in the middle of a 100km ride on a rail trail through farmer's fields. I thought I'd had enough food, since the same amount was sufficient for the initial trip out a few days earlier, but it wasn't. It was the return journey of my first big bike trip, and it was absolute hell after I bonked. I'd ride for twenty minutes, then lie on the ground for ten. When I was laying on the ground I'd be searching the vegetation for anything that looked vaguely edible. Crazy how a glucose drop can sneak up and humble you so quickly!
- tikhonj 8mo ago
  There's a lot of area on the spectrum between where we are today and "sugary beverages are all banned". For example, Starbucks could limit the sizes it sells and advertises—you'd still be able to have as much sugar as you would like by buying multiple drinks, but it would raise the activation energy needed to do that. Making the healthier choice the path of least resistance works wonders.
- lxgr 8mo ago
  By that logic, should Starbucks also sell life-saving insulin and epi pens?
oceanplexian 8mo ago
> The idea that all blame rests on individuals and corporations are blame-free is crazy. You know they have Starbucks in other countries without an obesity crisis? No one is forcing you or I to order a particular drink at Starbucks; they literally put the number of calories directly next to the menu item. The blame is 100% on the individuals making their own health decisions.
- WarmWash 8mo ago
  Yeah but progressive ideals are a much harder sell if people have to take responsibility for their actions. "Others should pay for my mobility scooter because others keeps feeding me junk food" and all that. Then again, free will is an illusion, so...
- munificent 8mo ago
  > The blame is 100% on the individuals making their own health decisions. If you put a pile of junk food on the floor, your pet will eat it until they make themselves sick. We are smarter than many animals and have more discipline. But we are still animals and do not have unlimited executive function. The people who architect the environment of incentives that surround us bear some amount of responsibility for the behavior those incentives create. Denying that is denying that we are living beings subject to all of the same limitations as any other mortal animal. We are not spherical rational actors in a vacuum.
  - sleazebreeze 8mo ago
    You can't control the incentives, you can only control your reactions to those incentives.
    - munificent 8mo ago
      We can control the incentives! The idea that we should completely cede the environment and public space to corporations and give them total autonomy over the incentives that surround us is crazy.
burgerzzz 8mo ago
[flagged]
- toomuchtodo 8mo ago
  GLP-1s disprove this to an extent. Personal responsibility is based on a fallacy, it’s just brain chemistry. So give everyone GLP-1s to cast the shadow of personality responsibility (reduction in adverse reward center operations, broadly speaking) through better brain chemistry. Existence is hard, we can twiddle the wetware to make it less hard.
  - whackernews 8mo ago
    Eh? I mean, this sounds potentially interesting but I don’t understand it!
    - toomuchtodo 8mo ago
      “We fixed the glitch.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12742762/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12742762/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031938424001677 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003193842... https://time.com/7340807/history-debate-insurance-glp-1s/ https://time.com/7340807/history-debate-insurance-glp-1s/ https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/the-growing-scientific-case-for-using https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/the-growing-scientific-cas... The consistency that I'm hearing from all across patient groups is gain of control, whereas previously, there was a loss of control… All of a sudden they're able to step back and say, 'oh, well I had this shopping phenomenon that was going on, gambling, addiction, or alcoholism, and all of a sudden, it just stopped,' - Dr. Gitanjali Srivastava, Vanderbilt Medical Center
      - deleted 8mo ago
        [deleted]
  - diath 8mo ago
    The only thing that GLP-1 agonists prove is that CICO does indeed work - if you force yourself into a caloric deficit through the inhibition of hunger hormones using drugs that you will lose weight. It has nothing to do with people choosing to eat highly processed unhealthy foods over healthier options. When you're on Ozempic or peptides like Retatrutide/Tirzepatide you don't think "I will not eat a bag of chips today because it's unhealthy and calorie dense", you simply don't think about eating because your feeling of hunger is inhibited.
c22 8mo ago
This is an extremely hazardous opinion. It is true that corporations spend vast resources attempting to lure consumers into their webs but you do have agency! You can resist! Vote with your wallet and strip these bad actors of the power you handed to them when you gave up.
raincole 8mo ago
You know multinational brands sell sweeter products in the US than in other countries? It's not that all the rest of the world has sugar tax or something. It's customer profile. [0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32576300/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32576300/ [1]: https://www.itiger.com/news/1184332557 https://www.itiger.com/news/1184332557
albedoa 8mo ago
> They have way more agency over what we consume than individuals do. I walk by Starbucks every day without consuming 1500 kcal worth of Starbucks. You think that's due to their agency??

altairprime 8mo ago

I do support addressing obesity (see my elsethreads), but duly noted that it’s not a cure-all panacea for the problems faced by women. Obesity does not address the nine different U.S. body shapes; one can be obese and rectangular, or obese and spoon, or obese and triangle. Resolving obesity is a worthy cause, but will only reduce or remove the impact of size inflation on ‘vanity’ sizing as a whole, without addressing the significant disparity of sizes between manufacturers or the near-total lack of products for the eight non-hourglass body shapes.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

zetanor 8mo ago

Despite the article highlighting only people of width as the "millions of people who are excluded from standard size ranges", sizing is also a problem in the other direction: it's practically impossible to find well-fitting clothes if you're tall and in decent shape. To your point, though, perhaps there was a time when "large" and "x-large" meant "slightly tall" and "quite tall" rather than "slightly tall plus obese" and "quite tall plus very obese".

mauvehaus 8mo ago
As a dude who is 6’ 1” or thereabouts with a 32” or thereabouts waist and a 34” (or thereabouts) inseam: can confirm. Carhartts size up a waist size to account for shrinking, and I can almost reliably find a 34/34. Finding 32/34 in other pants is a challenge. On the subject of vanity sizing, I’m 15 pounds heavier than I was 20 years ago, and I still wear a 32/34. Which is why all those measurements are qualified above. Finding shirts that fit is a similar challenge. Fitted shirts can usually be found in 16 34-35 with an athletic cut. Letter sizes are a total crapshoot. Sometimes I’m a L, sometimes an M. If I’m an M across the gut, frequently the shoulders are far too tight. Not that I’m complaining as such, but I do agree that the sizes encompass too little information about body shape.
- mikepurvis 8mo ago
  I'm 6'0 34/32 and even still feel some of this; L shirts are baggy, but M shirts (and sweaters) are often too short in the length and arms, especially after a wash. And it's not my imagination; I have a few custom made dress shirts from Maxwell's and those absolutely do feel correct in both dimensions. A tall medium where available will typically work for me but most brands don't have it at all and those that do it's a special order so what's even the point of being in the store; I might add well have just done a blind buy online from home.
- strken 8mo ago
  As a dude who is 6'7" with a 35" waist (34" in brands that do vanity sizing) and an inseam that can handle a 34" even if it's not quite long enough, I agree that it's tough. One of the more annoying problems is that the MT shirt size doesn't seem to exist where I shop and LT flares outwards at the bottom. At least it's pretty easy to get a shirt taken in.

selfmodruntime 8mo ago

Yea, if you read between the lines in this article this stands out. Over half of all adult women don't fit into regular sizes. "Plus size" is not normal.

Insanity 8mo ago

Yeah I wanted to point out the same. This sizing problem is not as prevalent outside of the US/Mexico (leaders in obesity). It’s less prevalent in EU and even less so in some East Asian countries.

panic 8mo ago

The article points out that the problem is deeper than this: > Once I compared my personalized sloper to commercial patterns and retail garments, I had a revelation: clothes were never made to fit bodies like mine. It didn’t matter how much weight I gained or lost, whether I contorted my body or tried to buy my way into styles that “flatter” my silhouette, there was no chance that clothes would ever fit perfectly on their own.

throwerxyz 8mo ago
[flagged]

8organicbits 8mo ago

I'll point out a statistical hazard here. While CDC lists the average height and weight at 5'3" and 172 lbs, the medians appear to be 5'3" and 161 lbs. That's a BMI of 28 and is considered overweight (25-30), not obese. Although I'll mention BMI is a pretty rough measure to begin with.

altairprime 8mo ago
To provide context for those still using BMI as the sole 'fat or not' discriminator — the CDC published an n=9894 longitudinal study* about ten years ago; generally summarizing figure 1, the median starts around 0.53 +/- gender variance at 20-29, peaks at 0.62 +/- at 70-79, and then begins decreasing from there; however, they found that BMI fails to represent the 'fat' levels improperly (to our detriment) for people in their 40s (figure 2), as older human bodies tend to lose fat in areas (i.e. arms) that have no significant bearing on overall health, but gain fat in the abdomen (which other studies have shown does correspond to increasing cardiovascular issues). They show median waist-to-height-ratio data as 'monotonically increasing abdominal adipose tissue throughout the years of adulthood but decreasing mass in non-abdominal regions', which bodes very poorly for clothing manufacturers — because not only do you have to account for nine body shapes in women, but you also have to account for age skewing the waist-to-length ratios of the body shape further. It would be particularly interesting to repeat this sizing study using the garment length to identify where it falls in 'height' median for women, and then identifying what 'age' median the garment's waistline is calibrated for. I can certainly guess what the results will be from personal experience on a per-retailer basis, and it would be a useful way to mathematically identify 'underserved niches' in today's market to target with appropriately-fit clothing (without a body scan). * doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0172245 (2017) https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/44820 https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/44820
- vpribish 8mo ago
  “BMI fails to represent the 'fat' levels improperly” - what is that supposed to say. I’m just done trying to understand things that the writer didn’t even read.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

queenkjuul 8mo ago

You can be in perfect shape and still not find clothes that fit. The issue IS the sizes.

bloaf 8mo ago
Expecting mass-market, lowest-common-denominator products to be tailored to your special circumstance is the issue. Normalize going to a tailor, instead of grumbling about how you aren't benefiting enough from the sweatshops mass retailers are running.
- WesleyJohnson 8mo ago
  But they're not lowest-common-denominator products. If they were, clothing designers would be tailoring clothes for a rectangular figure. The article clearly shows that only 12% of women have that "hourglass" figure and yet, by design, almost all the clothing manufacturers are tailoring their clothes for this shape, regardless of size.
  - bloaf 8mo ago
    You think companies are all deliberately leaving big money on the table by making hourglass clothes as an oopsie? They're doing it because people are buying clothes based on superficial appearance, and most people prefer the aesthetics of the hourglass shape. Rectangular clothing doesn't sell as well because it doesn't look as good on a mannequin even if it fits better.

mikepurvis 8mo ago

Yeah, I didn't want to be nasty about it, but the article saying that 37" is the median adult American woman's waist measurement is... pretty shocking. Like, I'm a 6' slightly out of shape dude and my waist fluctuates from 33-35". You'd have to be pretty large to have a feminine figure and have the narrow part be 2" wider than my widest section.

jrmg 8mo ago
Have you measured your waist? Vanity sizing is a thing in men’s clothes too.
wahnfrieden 8mo ago
No you're not. That's the size your brands of choice advertise to you so you think that you're slimmer than you are.
- zonkerdonker 8mo ago
  For anyone else wondering. Im also a 33 or 34 in pretty much any brand, just measured my waistline (where my pants usually sit), 38.5 inches. Never knew!
- mikepurvis 8mo ago
  Ha, TIL

tirant 8mo ago

I am really surprised about the sharp increase in body size by age in the USA. I have just anecdotal experience here in Europe, but I know for a fact that all the females in my family have kept the same size since they were 16-18 years old. That’s also my experience with the male side of the family.

Gigachad 8mo ago
Most adults in the US become physically inactive after they leave school/collage and move to an area where they have to drive everywhere, while sitting in an office the rest of the day. While I'm well aware weight gain requires over consumption, I feel there is an under appreciated importance on being somewhat mobile rather than sitting/laying down for 23 hours a day
- 0xy 8mo ago
  You can live a completely sedentary lifestyle and lose or maintain weight through eating normal amounts of food. Exercise is not the problem, overeating consistently is. For women, it's very common to consume sugary coffee flavored drinks and this behavior is glamorized on social media. For men, the problem is worse.
  - Gigachad 8mo ago
    In theory sure, but teenagers love sugary drinks and burgers too, sugar drinks exist all over the world too where obesity rates are significantly lower. While you can be slim while sitting all day doing nothing, being physically active is massively important for your health. The fact that the particular area you live in determines so much of the probability a person would be obese suggests the location plays a huge part. While sugary drinks are marketed and popular everywhere.

FarmerPotato 8mo ago

I remember a survey of explanatory variables for obesity. The variable that explained more was the size of corn subsidies. The hypothesis was: if you produce it, it will be consumed (Say's Law). Lower prices mean larger quantities demanded. (I know, it sounds like a confounding variable, you need a cross-sectional regression)

WesleyJohnson 8mo ago

The article has mounds of data that to speak to exactly how the clothing sizes ARE the issue. Inconsistencies within brands, across brands, shifting vanity sizes, and shapes designed to fit only 12% of women. And yet, the top comment is about obesity... Yes, obesity is clearly an epidemic. But discounting the entire article's premise to point that out?

segmondy 8mo ago
Thanks, any one with kids experiences this. It's so frustrating. For the same kid you could literally have 5 different sizes that are the same. So you have to keep track of sizes by brand. Trying a new brand is often an adventure. Worse of all, if you come across a sale and rush to take advantage of it. You could end up having lots of items shipped only to have to return every single one of them. It's a mess.