To think vanity sizing is not just about people being fatter

[goddessoftheharvest]

Not really a taat- I've been thinking about this every time it pops up on MN

Any thread about weight, there's always comments about how vintage size 12s were tiny, and the equivalent today would be a size 16. This serves to point out how people are getting gradually fatter without really noticing.

Aibu to think that might be a bit simplistic?

People nowadays have access to almost unlimited junk, yes, but they also have access to affordable vitamins, milk etc

My great granny was tiny, but she was raised on bread and tea in a slum with 8 siblings, two of them had rickets, and she was riddled with arthritis from a relatively young age

My gran (her daughter) had a marginally better upbringing, but not much- less children, better housing, more to go round, but still a restricted diet, no heating etc. She is a little taller than my great granny, about 5'3. Much healthier too, as she has had access to better food and living conditions from young adulthood

My mum is 5'4, and although she's still small, she's not as noticeably tiny as the other women in the family. Was still very poor through her childhood at times

I have had access to better food and housing etc than any of them, and I am much bigger. I am 5'6 and even at 7 stone I couldn't fit into some of my mum's clothes because my shoulders are so broad

My dad's family were poor, but they were country people. They got fresh air, sunlight, grew their own vegetables, liberated the occasional pheasant. Anecdotally they all seemed a bit taller/longer lived than the town lot

Also I see loads of old photos where the women are short, but quite round/stocky. So not necessarily fat, but not sylph like size 8 either

So aibu to think it's probably down to better nutrition and lifestyle as well? I see similar with friends my age too. We are all taller than our older female relatives. One of my friends is a power lifter and she would never fit into vintage clothes, but she is super healthy and just pure muscle- that would have been unusual back then too

I have a photograph of my mum in a 'new look' type dress back in the 1950s. Tiny little waist. Even when I was in my teens I struggled to get into it and I wasn't a lump by any means. My dad could get his handkerchief round her waist. She was 5.10'. She tells stories about the food they ate in the war that is horrendous - starvation rations more or less. And after the war when rationing was still in full swing. She wasn't just thin she was more or less skeletal. Generally people were expected to so more physical work as well as eat less. Yes, what they had to eat was probably more 'healthy; but there was simply not enough of it.

I agree that things have swung too far the other way but let's not assume that it was so much better to be undernourished than malnourished.

Also it makes me laugh when people cite Marilyn Monroe as an example of a larger woman who would be considered fat now. I saw two dresses of hers close-up in an exhibition and she had a tiny frame - extreme hourglass shape but overall about a UK size 8 today.

Totally agree, shins, I think that misnomer has done some damage over the years.

Yes, the idea that Marilyn in any way resembled a modern-day size 16, is laughable.

To be fair. Marilyn's clothes weren't off the rack. Bust and hips she may well have been a "16", but her waists were taken in. Her clothes were custom made.
I'm a 12/14 off the rack to fit my boobs/hips but they could come in around the waist quite a lot.

I'm now 9st - down from almost 12 (5 yrs ago). I pretty much fit most size 10 jeans/ skirts and size 12/14 tops. I've just been given a load of really lovely and good condition dresses and skirts from the early 80's (had to remove the shoulder pads!) Monsoon and Laura Ashley. All sizes 16 / 18. Thought they'd be too big of course . They fit fine.

It's been an interesting experience - in the 80's I WAS a size 16/18 and about this weight. I knew I wasn't slim then so why fool myself into thinking I'm slim now. I'm not. I'm slimmer than I was five years ago, yes. I still need to lose the layers of fat around my waist before I'd consider myself a healthy weight.

I think also women used to wear corsets, even in the 60s and these made you an abnormal shape. I once saw a diagram showing how corsetry prevented the ribs from developing in the Victorian era. No idea if the 'roll-ons' of the 60s did this too.

People were smaller, but also ate much smaller portions - a normal serving size has increased hugely. My nana was little & served tiny meals. I am a small woman and I have a small appetite, so I see how much some people like to eat and feed others - huge platefuls.

Also, we have cars now and people use them all the time, people used to walk a lot more and use public transport. I think those 2 factors do play a major part in the increased girth of people today.

Not read the whole thread - but just really?? about that Call The Midwife comment! It is fiction. The people in the waiting room are actors. A female actor nowadays will not be able to get work (unless a character actor like Miranda or Ruth Jones and even they have had to conform and lose a significant amount) unless they are a UK size 8/10 maximum. I can see you don't like being picked up on it spooky, but come on.

If you sometimes watch TOTP2 like I do, you will see 95% slim young people in the audience. That simply would not happen now.

I do remember taking double takes of very overweight people in the street in the 70s, now they (we) are everywhere!

It is all to do with 1. using cars more, 2. larger portion sizes becoming normalised (an import from the US and their restaurant portions) 3. everyone drinking tons of sugar in the form of juice, smoothies, fizzy drinks, wine (it was tea, tea or tea when I was growing up, a glass of lemonade at birthday parties) 4. takeaway food available absolutely everywhere you stop still and 5. snacking being seen as entirely normal. Not necessarily in that order.

And yes, excellent point about the smoking. Also, millions of people have been on "diets" and gained back their weight plus half a stone several times over the course of their adulthood. Not many women in the 40s and 50s would have even had to entertain the idea of a diet.

I still need to lose the layers of fat around my waist before I'd consider myself a healthy weight.
Snap

No thefitfatty, Marilyn was not a 16 on any level. I get your point about corset wearing but her shoulders, ribcage and hips would've been very tiny to fit into those dresses. She was very slim and slightly built.

"extreme hourglass shape but overall about a UK size 8 today"

Doubt it.

Post mortem measurements are known - she was 35-22-35. That's 2-4 inches smaller than a (post-vanity sizing) 8, so perhaps a 4?

It might have been about an 8 in the days when there was an industry standard (before vanity sizing came in)

25 years ago when I got married my wedding dress was a size 12. I weighed 7 stone 9 lbs and am 5 ft 7.
Today I weigh 8 stone 4 lbs so only a little heavier. I now wear a size 8.
My adult daughter said my size 12 wedding dress would be too big for her (she currently is a size 10)
She tried and couldn't get it on.
It is ridiculous this vanity sizing we have.

Some of my friends are quite chunky ( they look amazing & I love them to pieces) they wear a 10 or 12.
There is no way a single one of them would be able to get in to my old size 12 wedding dress.

The world of sizes has gone mad

I wish that the ridiculous system of sizing for women's clothing would stop and be replaced by the same sort of sizing system that is used for men's clothing.

When confronted with arbitrary numbers, like 10, 12 etc how is one supposed to find out the actual size? A "size 10" can vary between brands by as much as 2 or 3 inches. In my wardrobe, I have clothes in size 8, size 10 and size 12, all bought within the last 12 months - and all fit. When buying clothes online, I always have to order everything in 2 sizes.

Why can't women's clothing be sized by measurement? Men's trousers say "waist 32, leg 30", which is so much more informative than "size 10".

Chicky

Same here: 20 years ago I was about 7 and a half stone and wore a size 8, sometimes 10

Now 9 and a half stone and wear a 10. Occasionally a 12, or even an 8

It's doing me no favours

bibbity

I agree with your last post

Dp doesn't understand why I have given up buying clothes. In making sizes so random I find I just don't have time to play the game of taking 5 different sizes of jeans into the cubicle and trying stuff on. Is this random sizing a ploy to keep us in the shop longer so we might buy nor stuff.

I might be strange but I was watching Mary Portas when she was trying to revamp the high street and she kept talking about the shopping experience.
Anyone not interested or have time in having a shopping experience and just want to get in and out with what they want.

Marilyn. Obviously corseted, but so obviously not a modern-day size 16.

But again - why is it vanity sizing to adjust the measurements that different sizes have because populations are getting bigger!? It's vanity sizing to say that size 16 will fit a waist of 85 cm and then actually cut it for a waist size 90 cm. Then the customer tries on the bigger size and thinks, smugly (because we are a fat-phobic society) oh look at me, I can go down a size. But to adjust your size range to facts isn't vanity.

The British obsession with thinking that you're automatically healthy because you're a certain weight is harmful, IMO. If you're not active and moving, odds are you're not so much. If you (general you) care about health, stop treating crisps and chocolate bars as lunch foods for growing children and stop driving everywhere. Take some space from cars and build bicycle lanes. But oh noes, where would we paaaaaark.

At my sister's wedding in 1976, I wore a size 10 dress. It was a bit of a squeeze to get into it and I remember feeling a bit 'fat' when struggling to zip it up over my waist. I think I weighed about 7.5 stone, maybe a few pounds more.

Size 10 measurements then, in the vast majority of shops, were bust 32, waist 22, hips 34. It was generally the smallest adult size that was available. Most women were size 12 or 14. I was on the small side. Size 14 was bust 36, waist 26, hips 38.

I do remember that my boyfriend in 1976 could put his hands around my waist and was still able to touch his fingertips and thumbs ! Hard to believe now!

Oliversmum my DH is the same! He just says "well, what size are you? Surely you know your own size?" I think he thinks I am being deliberately awkward when I say that it depends on which shop I am in and on the cut of the clothes, the style etc! I can wear some size 8 trousers in wide leg or 'easy' style, but in other styles I can't get a size 10 past my knees!

I now buy all my clothes online. I recently ordered 14 pairs of black trousers in different styles and sizes - and only one fitted! That sort of thing happens all the time. All the returns must cost the retailers a fortune. Perhaps if clothes were sized more sensibly, buying them wouldn't be such a hit and miss affair!

Maybe we wouldn't have the obesity crises we have if the old sizes were still in place.

If we think we are a size 10 - 12 we associate those sizes as being slim. However if the old sizing still stood and you found yourself at a size where only 16/18 fitted you and the only alternative if you got bigger was granny fashion tent dresses from specialised shops, very few shops went over a size 16 back in the 70s then do you think we would have the number of overweight women especially in the Uk.

Marylin was not a modern 16. That is certainly true.

But when people refer to her dress size, I think what they are trying to get at is that she had a softer, fuller body shape than is the ideal today. She had full thighs and a soft belly that many lovely young women beat themselves up over emotionally. I think a lot of us would like to see women with this naturally curvy body type being given permission to feel good about themselves. A woman with Marylin's body type who is 5'10" is probably going to be a size 16, and she isn't "fat."

Obviously curvy is not the only beautiful. Audrey Hepburn springs to mind. I think there is room in the world for Marylins, Audrey's, etc.