In my 20's I weighed 2 stone less and was a size 14 for trousers - now in my early 60s, heavier and a size 12... this is absurd!!

[loveyouradvice]

I'm blown away ... I could never wear size 12 trousers in my 20s despite being fairly slim but big hipped, it was always size 14 - dresses and tops were size 12.

Now in my early 60s, weighing 2 stone more, I seem to glide into size 12 trousers.

This feels absurd! Have sizes really been changed that much as our population gets fatter?

Does it really matter though? People were slimmer in the past, this is partly due to different foods, partly less exercise, maybe partly less social shame. The teenage generation are hugely tall compared to my generation (40s) - presumably due to better nutrition. Humans do change and evolve in turn with their environments. Rationing will have had an effect on our parents/grandparents' generations, and of course the extreme poverty and lack of social support in the late 1800s. I know my mum's side of the family were very poor... my grandma was 4' 10, my mum is 5' 2, I'm 5' 6. That's doubtless due to better nutrition (my grandma used to talk about having porridge for every meal).

Of course there is vanity sizing, but there are still plenty of shops which cut small and most people will be able to fit into.

I remember this from when I was slimmer a million years ago. Slimmer again currently and I’ve got two Next suits, everything is a 14, but so are all my other trousers/jackets, some are ‘vintage’, some not. Weird, brands like Joe Browns, Dorothy Perkins, New Look, George. Surely they’re not ALL vanity sizes?!

Edit to say: slim for me, not by other people’s standards! I’m aware a 14 is not what most people call slim.

They're just numbers. Wear the one that fits. I can wear a size 12 from some shops (not many these days😅), but need a 16 in others. I don't worry too much what the label says.

Yes! Clothes sizes have definitely got bigger. Back in 1982 when I was 18,I was 9 stone 7 lbs and was a size 10/12. Now I'm 61 and 14 stone and I can fit in a size 16 in most brands, occasionally an 18. I find it strange that I'm 4.5 stone heavier and only 2 clothes sizes bigger. When I was in my early teens,I was overweight,weighed 13 stone 7 lbs and had to wear a size 20!

Yes even in films and shows as late as early 2000s their idea of chubby then is our average now, certainly not big enough to be like 'wow she's big' like they did about perfectly normal women of bmi maybe 26 or 27.

Exactly.

Size 6 is now fairly common. It’s an old size 8.

In around the year 2002 ish the whole Arcadia brand did vanity sizing.
Size 8 which was a 34 became a 36, which used to be a 10. So they brought in size 4 in topshop - which was the old 6.

Then many other brands followed. I have some old tops which say size 8/34. Now they’d all be a 8/36.

They didn’t so that women who were say a size 16 could then buy a size 14 or 18 size buy a 16, which in some of their brands was the top size . All to increase sales.

Yes! In some shops I'm now a dress size smaller than I was when I was 16.

This is where the myth of Marilyn Monroe being "plus sized" came from - a UK size 16 in the 1950's was very different to today!

Yes, sizes have changed massively. Even more annoyingly, they are inconsistent between shops, and sometimes within shops.

I'm not so sure, I have weighed the same most of my adult life within a few lbs (except when pregnant) and I've always been a 10 on top and 12 in bottoms, this has been the same for the past 25 years. I still buy the same sized clothes and weigh the same to this day, I guess it depends on where you buy from maybe?

@DUsername same here. What shops do they use? My dd can only buy from pretty little thing and they're often too big in a 4

When I was younger I had 23 inch waist and 36 inch hips and was a size 12 if the style was straight or in trousers if I wanted to breath and a 10 if the style was A line or flared. I don’t know how this compares to now.

I dont think she looked size 16 of today but she did look doughy, she must have been curvy (thicc) by old standards.

It's just arbitrary numbers, though. It's not like the numbers 30 yrs ago were "right" and the numbers today are "wrong". They've changed, that's all. If I moved to USA I'd be a size 8 by their sizing. Here I'm a 12. It doesn't really matter.

This is my experience. I'm having to send some Hollister jeans back and exchange them for a size 2! The size 12 top shop shorts I have from the late 90s still fit fine though.

Sizing is random. It’s random within shops, and between shops. I have clothes ranging from a 12 to a 20. I bring 3 sizes of something l I like into a changing room and pick the one I l Ike the most. It’s just a number.

Yeah, but rather than faffing around with trying 3 different sizes of one thing I'd much rather pick 3 different things in the same size, try them all on and see which I preferred.

With the move to online shopping it's even more of an issue. I don't want to order things in numerous sizes just to see which fits.

I agree. In the 90s, a Sz8 was pretty much the smallest size on the high street, but now Sz 4 and 6 are widely available.

I was 34,24,34 and had upper thighs that were 20 and 21 inches. I remember that exactly as I had to sign a contract regarding weight as I was modelling as a teen in the 1980’s. I was a size 10. I have a couple of items from the 1980’s that I kept, I would say they look a current day size 4.

It’s vanity sizing isn’t it, many people are fat these days, that’s it. I think the shift was the late 1990’s and the body positivity and love yourself stuff. It’s why type 2 diabetes rates are through the roof.

Got a vintage Mary Quant mini dress from the Sixties, size 10. My DD, size six, can’t get it near her. The shoulders are so narrow. Bit like Twiggy used to wear. Won’t part with it, because it’s a classic, but utterly pointless.

Yes. I was a 12 as a teenager 20 years ago. I’m a 12 now, weighing a stone more. And my mother gave me a pair of her jeans to try on from the early 80s — size 16 — the waist was tight!

Yup, I am basically the same weight I was in my teens and twenties, if anything a few pounds heavier. But in the 80s I was size 8-10, now I am size 6-8.

It's a problem when people poo-poo BMI and say they're only a size 14/16 so can't be that big. BMI is the accurate measure, not a modern stretchy size 16.
People are kidding themselves into health problems in middle age. Clothes and food shops and modern lack of activity are also to blame here.

It's mad. I've just regretfully had to throw out one of my favourite dresses from the 1990s (Warehouse) because the fine silk tore in multiple places. It's a size 14. I have been the same weight of 9 stoneish for 30 years, other than in pregnancy.

In my 20s I bought 12s and 10s. In my thirties, 10s, the odd 8. Now I mostly buy 8s.

Last week I took a dress I ordered online in a S back to & Other Stories to change it for an XS. The woman serving me was actually XS (petite, delicate, tiny - I am none of these things) and I asked if any of the clothes fitted her. She said that she bought them with the staff discount and her mum altered them to fit.

How often does that really happen though? I know very very few women (in particular) who are kidding themselves that they are thinner than they are and none that are using dress size as a yardstick. In fact I would say most women believe they are fat when they aren't. There are regular threads on here from women who are a healthy or even low BMI wanting to lose weight.

I was certainly sure I was fat when I was 9.5 stone and a size 10 back in the late 80s and 90s. Like many women I look back at those photos and laugh, thinking I wish I was as 'fat' now!!

Well I have got fatter and gone up sizes on the whole. So reading this, I think I have gone up 2 sizes but really I have gone up 4...

That simplicity sizing, I have the chest and hips of a 12 but the waist of a 16. I actually mainly wear a 12 so I think waistbands might be where the growth is?