Size 16 Mannequins in Debenhams

[calamitygin]

unveiled yesterday ... is no-one talking about this??? Or have I just missed the boat (as usual)

Ate you....ha ha ! Are you

"I understand that you can be a size 16 and healthy! But it is more unusual.
Having a high percentage body fat ratio is without doubt less healthy than having a low one."

I don't think it's that unusual to be size 16 and have a reasonable body fat ratio you know - I'm size 16-18, 5'5", and body fat 18-20% which AFAIK is fairly healthy. Looking around at women I see at the gym, that doesn't seem a particularly unusual body shape amongst moderately athletic women in their 30s & 40s, which I s'pose is the lower end of the Debenhams age range.

I looked at the mannequin on the Daily Mail article, which seems to have the most pictures. What struck me was that the dress (polka dot shift with a belt) they showed on the mannequin looked absolutely terrible - whereas the size 16 mannequin in lingerie looked great, because the shapes were flattering.

So maybe it's designers not shops who really need the size 16 (and other sizes of) mannequins if they want to design clothes that flatter real women of all sizes.

Although perhaps (being cynical) that you are more likely to buy more clothes if you have wardrobe of clothes that don't quite fit or flatter.

Though personally, I'm more likely to go on a spending spree if I'm on a roll of enjoying clothes rather than feeling dissatisfied with my wardrobe.

There shouldn't even be clothes for size 16 people! What do they want to look nice for?!

They should be given a potato sack and a whip to flagellate themselves until they are a proper, not dangerous to society body shape!!!!

/sarcasm.

Lots of people are size 16. They also buy clothes, therefore shops, which are in the business of selling things, should cater to their customers. This is sound economics and how the world works generally.

The idea that if "fat" people are sufficiently discouraged aka shamed and punished, then no one would be fat anymore is utter rubbish.

You know what puts the biggest strain on the NHS? Illnesses and poor health related to poverty. Save your moral outrage for that.

People say there is a lot pressure to be thin but with the average uk size being 16 is there really that big a pressure?

Anyway makes sense to market your clothes towards your average customer.

Regardless of whether it is morally right or wrong it is just a sales ploy. If you see the dress on a size 6/8 mannequin in the window and then try it on your size 16+ body then it will not look anywhere near as good, therefore you will not buy it. If it looks like it did on the mannequin then you are more likely to buy it.
The mannequins are probably not judged by the overweight as to be looking horrible; fatter people won't have the same emotion feeling about the mannequins as they do their own bodies.

Backontheface
I agree. It seems like not much pressure at all. There even seem to be many more young girls who are in the size 16+ range than there were when I was a teenager (I'm only 29 before I start sounding like an old gimmer!) and they would usually be at the slimmest age and want to be slim more than other age groups.

The pressure doesn't mean that more people are slimmer; it means that pretty much everyone learns to loathe their body and constantly feels that the should be slimmer.

But gosh, the illness related to poverty is caused mainly by bad diet. The lower the house hold income/socio economic group, the higher the likelihood of obesity; both adult and childhood. Not a popular fact, but a fact non the less.

I am now, after losing a bit of weight a size 12/14 and am still overweight. It is an ongoing project.

I was just about to comment with a "here here" on Gorilla's point about saving your moral outrage for the existence of poverty and its strain on the NHS and then I read your post bunty .

You do realise don't you that the reason people on a low income have a very poor diet is because that's all then can afford. Any idea how much a loaf of happy shopper white bread is and a big packet of "ham" full of trotters and pig's noses? not bloody much I can tell you but it fills a hole or 2 or 3 or 4. A bag of apples could be bought for the same price. As a parent with mouths to fee including your own what are you going to choose? Come on! Fat and sugar are cheap and bulk out "food" that have very little nutritional value.

My point being that obesity is a symptom of poverty so tackle the poverty and as Gorilla says save your moral outrage for that.

p.s. I do like your name

I wasn't morally outraged, but yes, if we cut away all the shite and go straight to the heart of the matter, the best solution would be more money, no poverty and better diet. That point was implicit (i thought) in my previous post.

It still makes me smile even someone here addresses me as "Cunty". Where else but in MN?

I think it is a step in the wrong direction. A size 16 is generally overweight for the average height and i wouldn't want to do anything that makes people feel like it is acceptable to be overweight because I don't think it is. Children in a household were 1 parent is obese are 5 times more likely to be obese themselves. We are spiralling into an epidemic. Step away from the

If you are a size 16 it is very unlikely your body fat is 18-20% unless you are very into bodybuilding.

How ridiculous.

They are trying to sell clothes.

Why wouldn't they have mannequins to show how different sizes look?

Do fuck off with your "normalising" bullshit. It's not as if the NHS are having obese people as their poster people is it? You think mannequins displaying clothes will make people forget that they have health problems caused by obesity? Care less about being healthy? Of course not.

Might make it easier for them to choose a dress though. How awful!

But it is normalising. Mannequins are meant to be aspirational, hence why they are usually unrealistically and unhealthily thin.

These mannequins go to to far the other way. The mannequins should be made in clothes sizes that are in the ideal range for most people.

"Aspirational"?

Some don't have heads. Or if they do have heads, some don't have faces.

They are just a form to display the clothes.

You think these "aspirational" mannequins are going to make a healthy size 10 think they best start eating fast food to look like the size 16 mannequin?

Most mannequins are far too small, I'd agree.

But size 16? In most cases, that is not the most healthy size. I don't care if it's average.

All this seems to be giving a far more important role to mannequins than I think they play in most women's shopping lives and self-image. I personally dislike most department stores and rarely visit them. I certainly try to avoid setting foot in a Debenhams. (But I do know that, because I live in London I'm lucky in having a good range of shops to choose from). If I do, I barely glance at the mannequins.

Most of our images of women and their clothes are from ads or PR-inspired pieces online or in the press, surely. And those photo-shopped and airbrushed images are very far from the reality of most 'real' women's appearance. I doubt if shop mannequins make much/any difference to perceptions, one way or the other.

I'm a size 16 jeans (M&S ooh stylish!) and am not only fat but technically obese.

Even when you see plus-size models they are always Amazonian in their proportions, at least 5ft 8 and just big all over. They never have short-arse obese people modelling. Are these mannequins really tall then?

I'm 5ft 4 and I don't think anyone would buy clothes hanging on a mannequin based on my figure

So incidentally it's actually healthier long term to be a bit overweight than a bit underweight. You have more of a chance of surviving infections and other illnesses as you age.

You can be incredibly unhealthy and be slim. You can be a size 16 and be pretty fit and healthy.

I think that just because mannequins are a size 16 doesn't mean being obese is normalised. We have a very overweight population, we're not at a point of moving towards it. To change that we need to re-think dietary advice (people should be eating good fats which regulates hunger, stops blood sugar dips and means that it's much harder not to be your ideal weight growing up if you're fit and healthy). We also need to make fresh local produce cheaper - tax anything with sugar in it I say and pass that on so there are subsidies for fruit and veg. It makes me sad because when I've been to, say, Greece, it is the local food that is the cheapest. They are eating a good diet of masses of veggies, fruit, olive, olive oil, feta cheese, fish. They are healthy. But over here local food is all expensive and for the middle classes. Farmer's markets are for the rich. That's the wrong way round! Mannequins really aren't an issue in obesity epidemic. That's nuts. We see images of thin people in clothes in every magazine, on TV, it doesn't inspire people to be healthy.

Personally I'm glad about the mannequins. I always feel shit trying stuff on that has looked great on a slim mannequin. Shopping is a bit soul destroying. This will give me more of an idea what will look good on me (size 14) and I'll be more inclined to buy stuff.

You can't spiral into an obesity 'epidemic' because obesity is not a communicable disease. It's such ludicrous, hyperbolic and inaccurate language.

I couldn't find a suitable female one, so this is a male large sized mannequin

aaronfu.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/fat-man.jpg

If I were overweight I would feel less likely to buy clothes on a well built mannequin because it would remind me that I am overweight. I wouldn't want to think I look like that!

No one accept Giselle and Naomi Campbell etc look like the tall, slender mannequins, so we all know the clothes won't look like that on us, but we see the clothes on display and like them or not because of the colour and style.

Those pics of the mannequins are too tall as well. They dwarf the Debenhams rep.

So obesity is spiralling into epidemic proportions.

Does that make you feel better?

Strumpetron Just because it's the average doesn't mean it's right though. Most size 16 people (myself included) are overweight, should we really be normalising it?

FGS as 16 is the average size it is by definition normal so it's tough. Moralise away but most people are around about a size 16 so why not show the clothes on models that size? Are you saying that people should be hidden away if they venture over a size 12?
Personally I think that size 8 is way too small and thin and there should be more outrage at the mannequins in shops being size 6 and smaller with the clothes having to be pinned to fit round the back. I don't want my daughter growing up thinking that the size 6 in the shops is the "correct size" to be and that if she's not then she is imperfect.

And from what I have read your health is more to do with how fit you are than how fat. My naturally slim size 12 friend who does no exercise whatsoever is more likely to die of heart disease thank my size 18 friend who runs 5Km ever Saturday and through the week. Yet society tells the size 12 friend that she looks fine so everything must be fine whereas the size 18 friend is demonised for being overweight.