Is a 28” waist really small?

[Ithinkofyouallofthetime]

So I bought jeans in this size as an insensitive to fit into them.

A friend who I would consider as slim (she’s also tall 5 foot 10) said that’s a really small size like teenage girl size.

Oh, good, are we doing vanity sizing again? 😏

Sizes and heights.

What do you mean by this?

She wasnt ever a UK or a US size 16. It usually claimed that she was, but she wasnt

Not true, she had a tiny waist and small frame, just with curves.

@KitKatChunki often quoted fallacy about Marilyn Monroe. She was approx 36-24-34 which is nowhere near a 16 (more like an 8-10 in current sizes). She was curvy, I think Scarlett Johanssen is probably a modern equivalent.

Similar to this. I was apparently a “perfect 10” according to the assistant who measured me for my wedding dress and my waist was 26 inches. 25 years later and my waist is still the same but I’m now a size 8 and even that comes up too big in some shops.

It is a myth that people were universally thinner in the past.

It is also a myth that people were better nourished.

Convenience foods were actually invented in the nineteenth century. We've been eating shit as a nation for a long time. If you look at the houses and flats built in the 1920s-40s, kitchens are very small, because in a post-servant era, women were encouraged to cook using convenience foods that didn't need much counter space to prepare. Tinned vegetables, tinned and processed meats, powdered and condensed eggs and milk etc, were a staple part of many people's diets. The belief that everything was wholesome and cooked from scratch is a nonsense. Just take a look at the advertising from the period.

I also find it hard to believe that the rationing diet was healthy. Fresh produce was hard to come by and so tinned/powdered was the norm. My nan remembers food being bland, padded out with bulking ingredients, and there not being much to go around.

Prior to the 1970s, it would also have been the norm for women to be corseted or girdled, which was factored into clothing design and sizing. Of course waist sizes were smaller in an era when most women were constricting their waists with a lot of heavy duty elastic underneath their clothes!

And to OP, 28 is v slim for your tall friend and quite slim for your height. I'm quite straight so even when slim (size 10/12) at 5ft 6 my waist is approx 30.

I dont know why you've gone off on a tangent about 19 century tinned foods, or that they're not 'wholesome' whatever that means. Tinned foods are just a way of preserving food given we didnt have ways of doing that effectively, theres nothing wrong with them at all. Scratch cooking isnt part of the discussion, you dont necessarily get fat on 'convenience foods' (your terminology). The fact is we are bigger and taller now, its not in dispute.

There have been a number of studies about the ration diet, the amount of veg, little dairy and even less meat was considered one of the best diets people have had for decades. I cant remember the studies and programmes but Ive seen it several times. Being bland doesnt mean it wasnt nutritious and healthy.

I wore 28 waist levi's at 17 and was tiny then.

Gosh when I was 17 I wore 24inch waist Levis. I was still 5ft 8 then. When I was 12 I remember being a size 20 inch waist for PE briefs although I don't know how tall I was then.

I'm really confused if this thread is about what we wore when we were teens/twenties/now, how tall we are or about how fat we all are now and how that compares to years of yore. Some people on here want us to believe Marilyn would have got her hips into a pair of size 10 jeans from Top Shop because it proves a point that women were thinner "before" some unspecified date.

The op just asked what size a 28inch waist was for jeans in UK.

Marilyn's hips looked bigger because her waist was tiny and she also had a small ribcage/underbust. 34 inch hips are actually a 6.

It's not small. I wear a 27, 28 or 29" waist depending on the make. I'm pretty much a standard size 10. Height 5'8 BMI 21

I'm slim but not small by any means. I'd say a 26 inch jeans is small.

Yes I did too . 8 stone and 5 foot 3. I wasn’t tiny though, just a normal size.

I don't know why these threads always descend into a discussion about what Marilyn Monroe's waist was and vanity sizing. We are buying clothes now and this is the sizing now.

I'm responding to your question about us being better nourished now.

We are, by and large, better nourished now. We eat food of a better quality, that's been stored and processed better, and delivered to us in much better condition.

In the past, a lack of refrigeration technology meant that foods tended to be heavily salted and processed to preserve them. If you look at a tin of Spam, for example, the meat is encased in gelatine and fat to help preserve it. For many people in the mid century, Spam would have been a staple part of their diet and more accessible to them than fresh meat, alongside other processed meats such as potted meat and sandwich pastes.

You very much do get fat from convenience, processed foods. They were just as prevalent in the past as they are now - just in a different form. That's my point.

I don't think the ration diet was a great quality diet. I would dispute that source from what I've read and heard from people who lived through the period.

We are bigger and taller now - due in large part to better quality nutrition.

I don't think the ration diet was a great quality diet. I would dispute that source from what I've read and heard from people who lived through the period.

Maybe it depends if they were rural or urban? My relatives ate a lot of homegrown veg.

She was miniscule, I think someone bought her dress from Bus Stop and it was pictured next to someone average size and it was like a dolls dress.

I wear either 27 or 28 jeans depending on the style and make.
I’m not tiny at all. I’m a size 8 and almost 5ft10.
When I was a teenage girl and actually was tiny, I was wearing 24 jeans and my waist and hip measurements were identical to Marilyn Monroe’s who people are saying was a size 16 (unfortunately my bust measurement definitely wasn’t). I wore a size 6 then.

I used to be 24 to 26 waist in my 20s and even slimmer in my teens but I’m larger now.

This is quite an old article but is along the lines of things I have read over the years

Also our average age at death is decreasing now, we're dying younger, that takes decades to kick in, I dont think we are healthier, bigger and taller doesnt mean 'better nourished' it just means we're eating more

Conveience foods dont necessarily lead to being fat, not the ones you gave an example of being 19th century tins. Over eating leads to people being fat.

https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2001/jan/14/life1.lifemagazine5

I remember my mum tell t me she had an 18” waist at 21

Just a reminder of what the OP actually asked:
So I bought jeans in this size as an insensitive to fit into them.

A friend who I would consider as slim (she’s also tall 5 foot 10) said that’s a really small size like teenage girl size.

It’s slim for todays’s bodies, a size 10, but not for a few years ago. I grew up in the 70s and size 10 was waist 22 - it’s quite unimaginable now. Am currently on a diet and a 28 waist is my goal 😄

Marilyn Monroe’s clothes are in museums and collections and they’ve all been identified as 8-12 with a size 10 the most common. That’s a waist 22 size 10. In reality, her proportions didn’t correspond to known sizes, as most of us don’t, but her measurements have been noted through clothes and fitting records and are closest to these sizes. No idea where the urban myth that she was a size 16 came from, she certainly was not 😳

I have some 28" waist jeans, but my actual waist is probably about 31". And of course, the waist on jeans is rarely anywhere near your waist.

Are you saying the opposite, that 28" jeans would fit someone with, say, a 25" wasit?