Went shopping in Vintage shops today, apparently every 10 years the companies add an inch

[EleanorReally]

so what was size 10 in the 1970s is now size 6.
to make us feel better!
Does that mean there were less size 20s in the 1970s? or equivalent.
how come,
there must have been sedentary occupations.
what is to blame?
fast food,
sugar in everything?

I find this subject really interesting as I was overweight / curvy (but probably not obese) most of my 20s. Then I lost weight in my 30s and after kids lost even more.

I was probably always a size 12 or 14 in the 90s which I don't think was seen as being that big - but I am short so probably looked relatively chubby.

I am now a size 8 or 10 with large boobs (30gg) and a waist of 30 inches. When I go online shopping and look at the size guides they do not reflect my figure at all. For example Marks and Spencer says a size 8 has a bust of 32 1/4 and a waist of 25 1/2. That's ridiculous, I can't imagine even very petite women are that small. And it's untrue, a Marks item of size 8 will often fit me and that isn't me squeezing into it.

Marks aren't the only company whose online size guides bear no resemblance to reality and it really puts me off online shopping. I bought a size 8 Hush dress without knowing much about Hush and it's too big and I have a size 8 Dorothy Perkins maxi dress that's a bit baggy as well but they didn't have a size 6 one in stock to try on.

I think a pp said that women in the 50s wore support underwear perhaps to bring their waists in but it actually baffles me that a significant chunk of the population could have had a 25 or 26 inch waist and surely it would be impossible after children. In order to maintain my weight now I eat a fairly balanced diet but I do limit snacks, alcohol, puddings because I like my size. Did women used to starve themselves in the 60s and 70s to fit into a size 10? I cannot imagine ever being able to have a 26 inch waist without starving myself - in fact with my mum tum I doubt if it would even be possible. Maybe women just weren't that healthy before?

20 years ago I was a size 10, occasionally 12. Now I’m pretty much the same size but with a squidgier tum and I often find a size 8 too big, and frequently find it impossible to find things that fit at all.

But surely this has something to do with being better nourished too?

My mother (born in 1940) is 5ft, I was born in 1970 and am 5ft 7" and my daughter (born in 2000) is 6ft. We are all (a modern) size 10 (mum may be an 8) and have similar shapes (same figure really But Mum would be petite sizing and DD tall sizing).

While we look odd standing in a row, we are all of us average amongst our peers.

Did women used to starve themselves in the 60s and 70s to fit into a size 10?

People were more active generally - car ownership was less common, household appliances weren't as labour-saving as they are now (think having to stir your washing about in a twin-tub before hauling it out, dripping wet, to be dried).

Shopping didn't mean taking the car to a big supermarket, it meant walking or taking public transport into the town centre, and then carrying your shopping home again.

A 'takeaway' meant walking to the chippy, not having food delivered or going to a drive-thru. Coffee meant a cup of coffee, not a latte or something-cino. Fizzy drinks were a Christmas treat, not an everyday beverage. A sandwich didn't come with layers of mayonnaise and random fillings. I could go on ...

My wedding dress in 1991 was size 12. I weighed 71/2 stone (5'7'')
I am now a size 8 and weigh 8 1/2 stone. Yes vanity sizing madness.

There was far less processed food.

Lower car ownership

No normalisation of being fatter - the population was slim and bigger people stood out. Being 10 stone was fat. Most people were no more than a size 14 - probably a 10 now. And yes, 25 was an utterly normal waist size - the one that was talked about as such (and featured in ads - remember the 'pinch an inch'?)

There was a (now openly admitted) rush if vanity sizing in the 1980s. Not a revalorisation based on actual population measurement, but simple greedy marketing.

It's why some posters respond the threads about dress size by saying it's meaningless nowadays.

I'm the same weight in my 40s as I was in my teens, and I go down a dress size every 5-10 years. Used to be a 12-14, now 6-8.

Same as many others - I'm still a size 12-14 even though I'm 2 stones heavier than I was in my twenties. However, I do think as a nation we are fatter because we move less and portion sizes are much bigger. Its not necessarily that we aren't doing the same level of sport stuff but more that, in the 'olden' days like when I were a lass, we walked round to a friends house to say hi - now we just send a text. Those little journeys mounted up! I also think we eat more takeaways although as a child, we always had fish and chips on a Friday night from the chip van that came round the villages! Nowadays I rarely have fish and chips but do eat more chinese and indian takeaways.

Think of a 'cupcake' in the 70s - a tiny sponge cake with a thin layer of icing. A 'cupcake' now - a large muffin with a four inch spiral of cream icing.

Also women wore girdles which I suppose helped them fit into smaller clothes. I remember my mum being really frustrated that my stick thin older sister refused to wear one. She was about 20 at the time (in the 70s) and mum seemed to think it was equivalent to going out without a bra on.

Agree with all the comments about housework being more labour intensive, people walking more, no takeaways/food deliveries etc. Food is everywhere now - coffee shops, sweet stalls etc. When you went to the cinema in the 70s you might get a choc ice. These days you can get your own body weight in sweets, popcorn and sugary drinks.

Gosh, yes portion sizes have changed completely! And so has the amount people drink. Plus seemingly constant snacking.

One multipack of crisps for the whole Christmas hols as a treat. Sweets only once a week after Sunday lunch, and a small packet now was shared Withnall siblings (no 'sharing size' then). Fizzy drinks just beginning to come in, but pre-teen children would share a can (too much for one)

Looking back, we simply didn't eat as much.

I have a swimsuit and a pair of capri pants, from the mid 90s. Can't bear to part with them although I haven't got into them for years. Each has the size plus the measurements for that size on the label. 3 or 4 years ago I looked up sizing charts online for M & S and Next, where they came from.

They are both labelled size 14 but came up as size 12 on the online charts.

I'm a fan of vintage clothes and have some nice size 20 pieces from the 60s, a size 18 blouse from the 70s and a few size 16 items from the 80s in my wardrobe.

They all fit me today. I'm a 14-16.

I'm think there’s a combination of factors at play here.
Firstly better nutrition through life - my grandmother was a teenager in the war and was considered a big strapping healthy country lass - she’s 5 foot 4 and nowadays would wear a size 10. People were smaller and we have grown bigger, taller and wiser through better nutrition without necessarily being fat.
That being said, vanity sizing plays a part - when I married 10 years ago I was 3 stone lights and wore a next size 18. Now I still wear a next size 18 so the sizes must have changed, even in the last 10 years.
People do carry more weight now then they did and it starts in childhood - if you watch old films of school age kids from the 60s and 70s and compare them to now, you will see how much more stocky children are - and this contributes into adulthood.

I don't think its very nice to call other womens bodies ridiculous. 25/26 inches is my normal waist size. I've never dieted, I'm just small all over (5'3, small hands and feet).

Whenever, I go home to Italy or on holiday in to Spain I feel perfectly average (both height, and size wise).
Although I have noticed Italian teenagers are getting taller (I'm 31)

Another point - freezers weren't a household must-have in those days. We only had the tiny ice-box in the top of the fridge back then. This meant more frequent (and as previously noted, exercise-involving) trips to the shops and less food available 'on tap' in the house.

There weren't 'BOGOF' type offers all over the place, either - money-off coupons were the equivalent, but those didn't encourage you to buy three of something you only needed one of.

'better nutrition through life'

The generation with the best nutritional n is the one who lived through rationing, as evidenced by increasing longevity, plus their immediatepost-war children (who caught the tail end of rationing and the eating habits of their parents)

It's one of the main reasons why you sometimes see comments about a new generation which at not outlive the previous.

The decline has been pretty clear, and coincides with rise in obesity. Basically, as a population we eat too much crap.

if you watch old films of school age kids from the 60s and 70s and compare them to now

Yes! Look at these children from 1977 - TRIGGER WARNING - it's a scary film about not playing on railway lines, featuring fake injuries.

In the 70s my mother & grandmother would go for coffee. Just coffee no cake. In the cafe Myself & my sister were allowed ice cream as a treat. One small scoop shared.

While we're all talking about the olden days...the first time I ever had a chocolate bar it was given to me by a peadiatrician! I would have been about 4 and it was for not crying during my jabs.

It was a little fun size chocolate bar and back then you couldnt get individual chocolate bars (lived in a village, im sure you could get them in big towns).

Camomila I'm very sorry. That was rude of me. I was typing too quickly and not thinking.

I suppose I was trying to say that that it is ridiculous that Marks label clothes as size 8 and they say online that fits a 25 inch waist when here I am a woman with a 30 inch waist fits into it with room. I didn't mean to say a 25 inch waist is ridiculous - obviously it isn't - and am sorry it looked like that.

I realise that there are a small number of very petite women with a small waist, I personally would never get there, unless I starved myself, as I don't think my body (after having a massive pregnancy tum) would ever lose the excess skin. I actually do wonder where very slim women get clothes.

In the 70s we used to walk a mile each way to school - I've just checked on Google maps. We'd meet my mum on the way home on a Friday and lug a week's shopping for a family of 4 home. On Saturdays she'd stand over the twin tub all morning and the cleaning got done on Sundays or later, by me on Saturdays for 20p for the whole house.
Apart from Swap Shop and a few things before then, there was nothing much in the way of TV at weekends. We had lots of freedom to roam but I remember my mother regretting our lack of freedom relative to hers as a teenager. As a teen she used to be able to cycle to the beach that's now about 40 minutes' drive away. She wasn't prepared to let me do that because of the traffic. Looking back at photos of residential streets from the 70s makes me boggles at how little traffic there was then.
Also I was the chubber in my friendship group - I wore jeans with a 26 inch waist at age 15. My friends were 22 or 24. I remember because to have 'bought' instead of home made clothes was a big deal.

S'alright stealthninjamum :)
(I'm probably a bit extra snappy atm, been off work with morning sickness for the past fortnight)

I find a primark size 8 always fits me. The only clothes I really have trouble with are dresses as I can never fill out the chest bit.

I think the normalisation of being overweight has changed and skewed people’s perceptions of what ‘slim’ means. I was at a large scale event for young girls recently. There were about 100 women there helping and the vast majority of them were quite significantly overweight - the difference between today and the YouTube clip below is shocking. It means that overweight people feel average and the children will grow up to think it’s normal. It’s just so weird that this has happened alongside the ‘beach ready’ ads, daily mail side bar of shame and massive media scrutiny of women’s bodies.

@ScreamingValenta Yes, there are only a couple of overweight children in that film, if it was filmed today around a third would be overweight. The same for the adults too.

I say that as someone who at 5’6” and 10 stone in my teens, was considered fat as i wore a size 14 which today is equivalent to a size 10 today (about 38-28-38).

Back in the 1970s, anything over a size 14 or a size 6 shoe had to be bought via mail order and was considered outsize. My mum was 5’8” and size 16 (so a 12 now) with size 9 feet and was considered a giantess!