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 think we'd see a lot more demand for sewing machines and dressmakers oliversmumsarmy...

I remember a friend of my dms who would bemoan how the size 14s were getting smaller,(her getting fatter had nothing to do with it).

She started making her own clothes.

A few more, just because she was so gorgeous! She wasn't fat, but she wasn't sinewy and she wasn't muscly, and she wasn't lean either.

I you are reading this thread, and you have this body type, you can be sure that there are people out there who think you look amazing.

Elly

those are beautiiful

her soft bits were beautiful

YY Elly Older men especially. I speak from experience.

I have a pair of jeans & a denim skirt from the 1980s that still fit well - both size 10. At that time I wore 12/14 tops & 12 dresses.

Now I wear a 4 (!!!) in NYDJ Jeans & size 8-10 dresses.

I am the same weight - waist slightly bigger, hips & bust slightly smaller since pregnancy.

Someone upthread said we have generally become curvier - I disagree - we have become fatter but less curvy - hardly anyone has a proper waist anymore & the clothes are cut to reflect this.

With stretchy modern fabrics there is no discomfort reining in the flab so even less incentive to slim & tone to fit clothing of a smaller size/cut.

I have a muffin top over my favourite jeans at the moment.
I have two choices.
(a) Get bigger jeans
(b) Eat less move more
too many people are choosing the former.

Re the curviness of Marilyn Monroe : many of the "style icons" of today are 15 years older than she ever lived to be.
Older faces and bodies are more angular and to not look flabby, older women in the media have gone for toning - making them even more angular.

Style choices are being driven by women who were invisible in the media back in Marilyn's day.

I have two choices.
(a) Get bigger jeans
(b) Eat less move more
too many people are choosing the former

This.
There's also option (c) which is stop wearing jeans altogether and live in leggings and stretchy tunic tops. Voila, everything fits.

And if you're like a very close friend of mine, you can convince yourself you're a size 16 and therefore not that overweight, because size 16 leggings stretch to fit.
She was devastated when she was measured for her wedding dress and had to order a size 24, because she honestly had no clue she was so big. Stretchy jersey can be very accommodating.

I'm incredibly pear shaped and have turned to making my own clothes in order to get things that fit properly. It also means that I can't convince myself that I'm smaller than I am if I want my clothes to fit.

By standard pattern measurements, I'm a size 8 bust, 10 waist and 14 hips - in RTW I tend to find size 6 tops too big and size 10 trousers, which fit over my larger calves and thighs, gape massively at the waist. I find it very frustrating because sometimes I just want to turn up and buy a nice outfit that fits but I'll spend HOURS trawling through shops with completely varying sizes and in the end I just go home empty handed. I totally understand why it works for pattern makers but it is SUCH a pain - I'd love to have the same system with men where you could just turn up with your measurements and figure out what you should pick.

I think it's not just nutrition, there's probably something to do with extra hormones and antibiotics being used in food production - it's more common in America and is probably linked to the fact that puberty is hitting earlier too.

Cutting down or giving up drinking would probably help in a lot of cases. 650 calories in a bottle of wine which a lot of people who drink, could consume easily on a night out.

I find it a bit disingenuous that drinking hardly gets mentioned on these threads.

a bit disingenuous that drinking hardly gets mentioned on these threads

True. Those posters who say they're struggling with their weight will usually say they binge eat cakes or biscuits or whatever - you rarely read a thread where people say they're fat because they drink too much.

One phrase that does come up a lot in advice, though, is "never drink calories", and alcohol has to be a part of that.

Exercise also helps with keeping drinking to a minimum, IME - not least because if I'm exercising in the evening I'm not bored at home and opening the wine.

DH and I are keen runners. We don't drink through the week usually (work/running/kids = no time!), and on a weekend we won't have a drink if we're racing the next day - which one of us almost always is. So drinking is limited to one or two glasses of wine after a race, often on a Sunday night.

I like wine very much, but it doesn't fit in so well with a very active lifestyle, two small children and a full time stressful job. Whereas if I didn't run I think I could happily enjoy a drink most nights, if I didn't make an effort not to.

Thing is Running we live in a world that treats ppl who dont drink as abnormal.

Im teetotal and at the age of 43 have never been drunk. When it comes up in conversation ppl either do a double take, refuse to believe me or ask me "Why?" with a really incredulous look on their face.

I get the same if I choose to drive to the pub and not drink, Helena. People are always very keen to try and make me drink and leave the car there overnight, rather than me drink lime and soda.

I think it's also very easy to underestimate alcohol calories. If I'm drinking I might have a large glass of red - but I know it's large, I know it has around 250 calories, and it'll last me most of the night.

My sister, though, loves sugary, sweet drinks. On one occasion I saw her put away three bottles of Koppaberg in the time I had one glass of wine. And they probably have what, 300 calories in each bottle?

And then there's the "oh fuck it" calories that are invariably ingested after a few drinks...

Yes People are more likely to go for a carby takeaway after drinking. Ive seen it.

Here is what is weird though............i was brought up in a house that didnt drink. The only time my parents drank was with Christmas dinner. My dad told me he has only been drunk once back in the 1950s and he felt so shit he has never done it again.

my mum has never been drunk AFAIK. So not drinking is my normal

Yet my DB loves a drink and likes his whisky and beer a lot.

Weird cos we were both brought up in the same family same house with what ive described.

Each generation has definitely been getting bigger, but vanity sizing is definitely a real thing for those of us who have lived long enough to notice.

I have exactly the same skeleton I had in the late 1980's except for a few healed fractures but back then I measured 32-22-34 weighed 7st11 and was a size 8, now I measure 36-36-39 weigh 9st5 and I'm........ a size 8

Tried to buy some trousers today but everything was massive on the waist but too tight on the thighs. My size 16 and size 22 friends have exactly the same complaint.

I think when sizes were modernised in the 1990s they completely fucked it up and need to do it all again, but in cm this time please so we can check with our tape measures

There is no such thing as vanity sizing. Sizes have increased because clothing manufacturers, like bed makers and housing developers, have adapted to the fact that we are bigger. It is nothing to do with flattering consumers. Different stores have different sizes because they each have a target customer in mind. If the clothes consistently do not fit, you are probably not their customer.

The nature of 'adaptations' has changed though.

Until the 1980s, there was an industry standard.

Since deregulation, it's been a free for all, driven by marketing departments.

The human shape has not changed that much in the last 30 years.

running
I'm very well aware of the number of calories in my alcohol habit
but I choose to imbibe and enjoy it

Ta1kin - me too! It's my one calorific vice (unlike most Mners (seemingly), I cannot eat whatever I want, without putting on weight).

Sheba - I don't disagree that different stores target different customer bases. This is absolutely true.

But the same applies to men's stores/clothing, and yet their sizing is standard, based on actual measurements (widths and lengths).

Whereas women's sizing is utterly arbitrary, and therefore at the whim of manufacturers deciding that what was once a size '10', is now a size '8'. If that's not vanity sizing, I don't know what is. Why not just provide a fact-based, unemotional, standard measurement?

Dowager
I can eat all I like and stay thin : since doing WW 15 years ago my appetite is not huge.
But a good Friday night on the and I can double up my TDEE

Shoe sizes were mentioned earlier. The nation's feet have increased in size, definitely. I used to be a 5 and a half. Fives would have my toes poking against the ends, sixes were too big.

Now I'm shoe size 5 and even a half size bigger is too big.

I dont have any vices dont smoke or drink. And cake is no longer my vice obvs.

If i had my way sex would be my vice but unfortunately its not to be.

There is no such thing as vanity sizing. Sizes have increased because clothing manufacturers, like bed makers and housing developers, have adapted to the fact that we are bigger. It is nothing to do with flattering consumers.

except this is EXACTLY vanity sizing

There are still plenty of slim women around without fat tummies who now struggle to buy trousers!

If they were just adapting to the increasing numbers of larger fatter people, they would have just made more larger sizes than previously

except no-one wants to discover they are a size 26, 30, 40, whatever

So shall we take the measurements from 1890 to 1950 and say that the fifties were vanity sizing?

I am thankful I am old enough and wise enough to know the difference between dress side and health. In the 90's I was a side 8. I smoked 20 a day, ate crap and never exercised. And necked Thunderbird wine!

Now I am 46. I am a size 10 or 12. I run 10 mile runs regularly and always manage at least 20 miles a week. I am at the top of my bmi but my doctor says I'm fit as whatever.

Size. Fuck off. Fitness matters. I have been a fat person running. My last half marathon I looked quite massive next to some of the runners. I beat some of them. My blood sugar is great, my blood pressure is low, and I don't give a flying one if I don't have a thigh gap. I am healthy.

I would care less about people moaning about vanity riding if it was at least consistent. I am a size 6,8, 10, 12 in bottoms depending on the shop.I am a size 12 to 18 on top because I am a 32 F! It's all just so much crap.