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.

My 5' aunt had an 18 inch waist in her 20s (1940s) and my mum, 5'3", a 22 inch at around the same time. Neither worse corsets but always wore a girdle/rollon.

I'm not big but unfortunately have always lacked a proper cinch waist, even at my thinnest in my 20s, when I wore size 8 or 10 all the time. I now wear whatever size fits me best. I just purchased a size 10 coat from M &S but have others in a 14. I never buy clothes online as I never know what size to order. Madness.

Mine is 28 inches (40 inch hips). Im about 2 stone over my preferred weight at the moment. Pre children I had a 23.5 inch waist for a while (36 inch hips), with a corset it could have easily been 18 inches.

Pre children my waist was 23". This would be as a teen and in my 20s, and in the late 1970s through to mid 1990s. Never worn a corset in my life. Always eaten everything - though, compared with what I see some people eat now, it was a lot less. One thing that strikes me is the amount people 'snack' now. We grew up with breakfast, dinner and tea and potentially a biscuit when got in from school or my parents might have as a snack with a cuppa mid evening. I wore size 10. Don't remember commonly seeing anything less than a size 10 in most shops though.
Oh, I'm about 5'5" and (ten) weighed 8 stone 3lb for years and years.

I had a 24 inch waist in my 20s at 5 feet 9in and 9 stone. I was a size 8.

My waist is 24. 23 if I breathe in. I'm 5'5 and 57 years old. I'm a size 6 these days, although when I was the same size aged 19 I was a 10.

I own a vintage clothing business.

In all my years of buying and selling vintage clothes (pre-1960s) I have never come across an adult woman's dress / skirt with a waist smaller than 21-22 inches. Even from the 1930s.

Edwardian/Victorian/Georgian clothes were worn with brutal corsets which cinched the waist right in and swashed the organs. However, the Georgians and Victorians also padded the hips and busts to accentuate the waists. As others have said upthread, people were generally smaller (as in shorter) back then. Nutrition was different.

Anything smaller than that - and I regularly chat to older ladies who swear blind that they naturally had 18-inch waists in their 20s (in the 1950s) - would have been due to corseting. I've actually asked ladies in their 70s and 80s to show me how to measure my waist. Without fail, they overlap the tape measure by a good few inches!

If you look at photos of young women in the 1950s - family members for example - you can see that their waists aren't 18 inches. I've had so many people showing me photos of their grandmothers and telling me all about their 18-inch waists, but I can see quite clearly that they aren't (and when I buy the clothes, I measure them and they usually 24" when the wearer has claimed to be 18").

I'm a UK size 6. My waist is 24". My DD is 12 and has a 21-22' waist and she's very, very slim.

Dressmaking-wise, in the 1950s a size 12 pattern had a 26.5' waist. Nowadays that's a size 8. Today's size 12, based on average from shops such as Next, M&S, Boden etc, is 30-31". That's vanity sizing for you!

Not that I think people are lying about their size in the past ... but I think the way people referred to size was different. e.g. "18 inch waist" actually measured 22-24". Bit like a modern "size 12" having a flexible meaning depending on where you shop...

My waist was 22” when I was young. I’m 5’3” and wore a size 10 usually, because there wasn’t often anything smaller. Now I still wear size 10, but it isn’t the size 10 it used to be. At my smallest, as an adult, I weighed 6 and a half stone.

Weren't people shorter few decades back? So altogether more petite?

I’m late fifties, just under 5ft waist is 25” most of my recent clothing is 6/8 some trousers are a size 4 as I have small hips as well, some clothes that I have from many many years ago are mostly a size ten.
My weight or shape has changed very little, so I’m guessing it’s vanity sizing, yy pp who said original fifties dresses fit like a dream I find this as well.

I used to have a 26 inch waist when younger and a washboard stomach. It was a lovely waist for a size 12 person. I could understand how a size 6 person would just be proportionally smaller in the waist but I remember wondering how any adult woman managed to have an 18 inch waist. Maybe it was just a bit of a catchphrase! Or deforming corsets.

Without fail, they overlap the tape measure by a good few inches!

Surely overlapping makes the measurement bigger not smaller as excess tape is used? I don't get it x

I'm 5'6" with a 25-26 inch waist (depending on the day) - but that's if I measure just above my tummy button, at the bottom of my rib cage, which is much slimmer than around my tummy button.
...I'm never very sure where to measure when it comes to waist size...
Anything below 23" waist is ridiculously scary - like, surely that would affect your rib cage shape? Or you'd have to be starved, and extremely unhealthy?

For context I'm a size 8-10 in most stores and an ultra runner.

My waist is 19" but my dimensions are 30-19-32. i hate it

I had a 22 inch waist before having DD, my ribs got wider and haven't gone back so I'm a 24 waist now. Im 5'5" but I have a very long torso which means my organs have more space I suppose. My DGM had a 19 inch waist when she got married, and she is only a few inches shorter than me, and I can't fit into my DMs wedding dress as a modern 6/8. They both grew up quite poor, whereas I never wanted for anything so I don't think it's to do with malnutrition, just body shape and bone structure, we are all slim hourglass/pears. I did ballet for over a decade and that certainly kept me in shape, I had a six pack as a child/teen.

Here is a photo of the wedding of Princess Maud (one of the DDs of Victoria and Albert). How do you like those waists?

I am 5ft 3, have a 23.5 inch waist at my slimmest point of my waist and am a size 6. Sometimes find it difficult to find a waist size to fit me. I am not sure of my body fat percentage but am a runner and am fairly lean.

Before I had my son my measurements were 34/24/34! They're not now.

I don't like them at all @BalloonSlayer !

Wonder what those corsets measured. Urgh.

@BalloonSlayer - no wonder they all look so glum!

I've got a 26 waist and I'm an 8-10 usually I'm short with chunky legs. I got some trousers from Primark today that reckon to be a size 6-8 which is absolute bollocks as they are still roomy on me and there is now way I am a size 6.

The smallest I've ever been as an adult was 32-25-35 at 28, but I was 7 stone soaking wet, at 5'5 and had ribs like a xylophone. Some size 10s (1980s) were tight on me.

I'm decidedly chunkier than that, these days. About 50% chunkier!

We refer to bra and dress sizes now but earlier generations spoke more about waist sizes and measurements like 36-24-36 (bust-waist-hips)
In the same way some women will consider themselves to really be a size 12 once they shift these few pounds, I think women then considered their waist size to be the measurement when they stood still and didn’t breathe. It was a self esteem thing to knock off an inch or two.

In terms of corsets though, the internal effects are frightening. Hard to belief they were ever acceptable.

That’s just like saying how do children fit all their organs? Er they fit the size of your bone structure.
I’m a mid twenties woman with a 25 inch waist and 40 inch hips. My bone structure makes me have natural curves.
Unless wearing dangerous corsets, individuals aren’t going to have waists too small for their organs, that’s clearly the space required for their organs, which do slightly differentiate in size between people. Larger people just have a layer of fat covering theirs, not larger bones.