Waist size

[fatpatsthong]

Not a taat but inspired by a comment on bmi/waist size.

Someone mentioned their grandmother having an 18 inch waist and I remember being fascinated when reading gone with the wind about 17 inch waists etc. Now I get corsets etc making these artificially tiny and also being damaging. But even now, seeing models etc who's stats show a 23 inch waist, taking a look at a couple of size guides and seeing a size 6 is 23.5 inches etc THEN seeing all the comments about vanity sizing and how sizes used to be smaller, what I don't get is how this is possible for an adult woman?

I have 2 9 year old dds. One is tall and slim and one is average height and very very slim. I weighed and measured for car seat purposes recently and looked them up on the nhs bmi calculator so not delusional I promise. They are 2 of the thinnest girls in their class - in fact dd2 is probably the smallest.

My mum made them some skirts the other day so we measured their waists. Dd1 was 23 inches, dd2 was an inch smaller. I looked up a couple of kids size charts and for dd1's height (she needs age 10) this shows a 24.5 inch waist in Boden (first one which came up when I googled).

Given these are skinny pre pubescent children, how can an adult woman have the same size waist? Where do her organs go!!!

This isn't a criticism or 'losing sight of what a normal weight is' post, I am genuinely just a bit baffled - according to the Boden chart an age 2 size is up to a 20 inch waist which is 2 inches bigger than Scarlett O'hara. How does that even work?

I've been awake since 4 and this has got caught in my head, like the biological equivalent of an ear worm so if someone could solve this for me, I'd be so grateful.

I have always had awauat two sizes smaller than my hips, it’s a bigger finding clothes that fit. Is posh slice not an 18’’ waist or something crazy like that. Although I remember the light catching her face on tv and she looked like the photos you see of victims of concentration camps her face was so gaunt at a certain angle.

We measured ourselves at work once I was a 14/16 and had the same waist size as the girl who was a 12. She couldn’t handle this but wouldn’t accept that i’m A pear shake and she was like a rectangle and hips and waist had no difference. She screeched (she always screeched) ‘ but you’re f....a different size!’ I raised my eyebrow ‘were you going to say fat? Yes I’m overweight but I have a small waist!’

One of my boyfriends loved it back in the 90’s when I was a size 10 he loved how my waist went in.

Jeez I cannot type these days constant typos.

Posh spice is 23’’ waist which is apparently the average size for a 7 year old so not 18’’ I think my thoughts are probably bigger than her waist.

*thighs 🙄😳

I have read this with interest, as my job/career involves clothes sizing and I have also measured hundreds and hundreds of women - including waist.
Firstly - I have NEVER measured anyone under 22"" over the years. I see a lot of models too.
Secondly - I am 5'4" and when I was 7 1/2 stone - waist never got below 23" for me ( It is bigger now - weep)
but I think with really tight boned corset structures, you can really squish someone in, maybe to 17/18 inches!!
Watching Drag Race - one of the Queens Violet Cachki uses a corset to pull his/her waist to 18". ( I saw her throwing up on one episode as it was sooo tight).

My friend's daughter has a 21 inch waist, she's in her early 20s no children, average height. She seems to have a long torso, don't know if that makes a difference?

Malnutrition and corsets. Although, not everyone was skinny and tiny - ive seen pics of the old matriarchs of my family curca the 30s - they grew up in victorian slum london but they are built like brick shithouses! Likewise there was a film going round fb of kentish hop pickers back in the day - every old woman on there was broad as the back of a bus.

They walked EVERYwhere and did all their housework manually too, even down to scrubbing the doorstep daily!

I am 50 and from the age of 16 to 37 (when I had DS) my waist measured 23/24 inches. I am 5ft 6, but have larger hips so wore a dress size 10 (occasionally 8, occasionally 12). I weighed between 8st 3 and 8st 10. Even now when I weigh (a post Christmas) 9st 10 my waist is 28 inches. When I drop back to a more comfortable 8st 10 to 9st it is around 26 inches. I'm pear shaped/curvy and just do have a proportionately small waist and when I lose weight it always comes off at the waist first.

For what it is worth I also measure 28 around my ribs/under my bust.

@fluffyyears loving Posh Slice

I went to the Bronte sisters museum in Haworth and they have some of their clothes on display (dresses, shoes etc).

They're absolutely tiny. Like children's clothes.

But then they were quite sickly weren't they, and all died very young I reckon malnutrition and illness definetely had a part to play in people's sizes in those days.

25" waist was a size 10 in 2006.
Meaning size 8 was 23".

Is size 8 really that tiny? 8-10 is the norm in Eastern Europe.

My Mum used to claim she had an eighteen inch waist, but I doubt it because she didn't have an hourglass shape. She was very thin though, and I think she used to wear an elastic belt thing under her clothes to cinch her waist in.
I'm the opposite to an hour glass shape, my waist doesn't go in at the sides and even when I was underweight I struggled to fit into small clothes (no elasticated waists in those days) because of it. At least the high street of the clothes industry acknowledges that not all women are hourglass and nor do we want to wear girdles or corsets.

Sizes have definitely gotten bigger. I was always really confused when my mum said she was 5' 4 and 8 stone in 1985, and wore a size 14.

I'm 5' 5 and wore a size 14 at 13 stone! However I now realise that in today's sizes she would have been a 10 or something.

I'm the exact same weight today as I was when I was 19. (10 stone 4). I was a size 14 then. Now I'm wearing size 12, though the trousers are getting a bit big for me now, so I don't really that much difference, to be honest, apart from the difference in the waist sizing, which suits me. I used to hate having to wear jeans that were tight around the waist but baggy over my hips and arse.

I’m 5’2, my bmi is 20 and I have a 27/28 inch waist. And I’m an hourglass!
When I was 11 I had a 23 inch waist and I was underweight.

If you see any examples of womens' clothing in museums you will see how tiny the outfits are. I think, generally, we are all taller now than generations back. Most of the Victorian, and older, outfits are for people no larger than 5 feet high, some even smaller.
Add on to this the malnutrition, corsets, extremely busy life, great effort to do even the simplest task (lighting the fires, preparing all food from scratch, walking everywhere and lack of fast food then people were a lot smaller and thiner.
Not sure that this was a healthy option!

Women's shapes have changed for sure. I am pretty much exactly the same height/weight as my mum & aunt were at my age (5' 1", bit under 7 1/2 stone), but my body shape is definitely different.

I've got a considerably bigger waist - I can't wear skirts of my mum's from the 70s/80s, and also a bigger rib cage / wider shoulders. Partly that's due to lifestyle, I'm much more physically active so more muscular, but I think it's pretty normal in general. If I make up sewing patterns from the 60s/70s the waists are just tiny compared to everything else.

I've heard it put down to better nutrition in childhood, and that would definitely fit for my 30s born aunt, but my DM was born in 1940 and so got the benefit of rationing, my nan having decently paid war work, school milk etc.

Should say my mum had an 18" waist when she married - in 1958 aged 18 and definitely no corsets!

Mine is 25 if I pull it tight and breathe in! When I was a semi anorexic teen I remember it being around 22 ins. My 8 year old who is very petite has an approx 20 in waist and clothes her age are too loose on waist for her. So op, yes, you are right, there must have been a lot of assistance with the corsets!

Google what an 18 inch waist looks like. No-one has that naturally.

Did anyone see Channel 4's "The 1900 House" years ago where a family lived as a family of the period for several episodes? The mother of the family (and I think an older daughter) i.e the corset wearers had to be checked daily by a doctor because of the health hazards of wearing one!
And yes to the "inching" upwards of clothes sizing....I still have in the house an M&S maxi skirt from 1974 which at size 14 was for a 26" waist.....mine is now 34" and I fall between M&S size 14 and 16.

My mother's waist was 19 inches when she was 19, and 21 when she was 21. My 24 year old daughter has a 22 inch waist.

Sizes have definitely got bigger- I'm a size 8 and I have a 28inch waist (true waist as in between ribcage and belly button, not waistband).

In 2000/2001 sort of era I was very thin and I remember being delighted to find an odd size 8 in places like miss selfridge, they were not the norm. They certainly wouldn't fit me now and I'm technically the same size!