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diath 8 hours ago

The issue is not the sizes, the issue is the obesity epidemic. According to CDC [1] the average woman in the US is 5'3" weighing 172lbs. That's not just overweight but rather first degree of obesity. I guess you could argue that sizes should catch up to the demands when half of your population is straight up fat but I feel like a better angle would be educating people that 1500 kcal worth of Starbucks sugar for breakfast is not healthy.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm

panic 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The article points out that the problem is deeper than this:

> Once I compared my personalized sloper to commercial patterns and retail garments, I had a revelation: clothes were never made to fit bodies like mine. It didn’t matter how much weight I gained or lost, whether I contorted my body or tried to buy my way into styles that “flatter” my silhouette, there was no chance that clothes would ever fit perfectly on their own.

throwerxyz 7 hours ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

WesleyJohnson 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The article has mounds of data that to speak to exactly how the clothing sizes ARE the issue. Inconsistencies within brands, across brands, shifting vanity sizes, and shapes designed to fit only 12% of women. And yet, the top comment is about obesity...

Yes, obesity is clearly an epidemic. But discounting the entire article's premise to point that out?

segmondy 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Thanks, any one with kids experiences this. It's so frustrating. For the same kid you could literally have 5 different sizes that are the same. So you have to keep track of sizes by brand. Trying a new brand is often an adventure. Worse of all, if you come across a sale and rush to take advantage of it. You could end up having lots of items shipped only to have to return every single one of them. It's a mess.

zetanor 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Despite the article highlighting only people of width as the "millions of people who are excluded from standard size ranges", sizing is also a problem in the other direction: it's practically impossible to find well-fitting clothes if you're tall and in decent shape. To your point, though, perhaps there was a time when "large" and "x-large" meant "slightly tall" and "quite tall" rather than "slightly tall plus obese" and "quite tall plus very obese".

mauvehaus 6 hours ago | parent [-]

As a dude who is 6’ 1” or thereabouts with a 32” or thereabouts waist and a 34” (or thereabouts) inseam: can confirm.

Carhartts size up a waist size to account for shrinking, and I can almost reliably find a 34/34. Finding 32/34 in other pants is a challenge. On the subject of vanity sizing, I’m 15 pounds heavier than I was 20 years ago, and I still wear a 32/34. Which is why all those measurements are qualified above.

Finding shirts that fit is a similar challenge. Fitted shirts can usually be found in 16 34-35 with an athletic cut. Letter sizes are a total crapshoot. Sometimes I’m a L, sometimes an M. If I’m an M across the gut, frequently the shoulders are far too tight.

Not that I’m complaining as such, but I do agree that the sizes encompass too little information about body shape.

mikepurvis 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm 6'0 34/32 and even still feel some of this; L shirts are baggy, but M shirts (and sweaters) are often too short in the length and arms, especially after a wash.

And it's not my imagination; I have a few custom made dress shirts from Maxwell's and those absolutely do feel correct in both dimensions.

A tall medium where available will typically work for me but most brands don't have it at all and those that do it's a special order so what's even the point of being in the store; I might add well have just done a blind buy online from home.

strken 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As a dude who is 6'7" with a 35" waist (34" in brands that do vanity sizing) and an inseam that can handle a 34" even if it's not quite long enough, I agree that it's tough. One of the more annoying problems is that the MT shirt size doesn't seem to exist where I shop and LT flares outwards at the bottom. At least it's pretty easy to get a shirt taken in.

atestu 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I’m not affiliated with it but I recommend americantall.com They only do clothes for tall people.

altairprime 4 hours ago | parent [-]

(And for women who’ve made it this deep in the thread, Long Tall Sally has been pretty excellent over time.)

FarmerPotato 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

For work casual (and formal!), I was thrilled to discover tailored shirts. Not bespoke, but actually getting fitted in a store like Jos. Bank that handles the alterations.

The value proposition is comfort and they last a decade.

altairprime 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I do support addressing obesity (see my elsethreads), but duly noted that it’s not a cure-all panacea for the problems faced by women. Obesity does not address the nine different U.S. body shapes; one can be obese and rectangular, or obese and spoon, or obese and triangle. Resolving obesity is a worthy cause, but will only reduce or remove the impact of size inflation on ‘vanity’ sizing as a whole, without addressing the significant disparity of sizes between manufacturers or the near-total lack of products for the eight non-hourglass body shapes.

mikepurvis 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, I didn't want to be nasty about it, but the article saying that 37" is the median adult American woman's waist measurement is... pretty shocking. Like, I'm a 6' slightly out of shape dude and my waist fluctuates from 33-35". You'd have to be pretty large to have a feminine figure and have the narrow part be 2" wider than my widest section.

jrmg 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Have you measured your waist? Vanity sizing is a thing in men’s clothes too.

wahnfrieden 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No you're not. That's the size your brands of choice advertise to you so you think that you're slimmer than you are.

zonkerdonker 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

For anyone else wondering. Im also a 33 or 34 in pretty much any brand, just measured my waistline (where my pants usually sit), 38.5 inches.

Never knew!

mikepurvis 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ha, TIL

8organicbits 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'll point out a statistical hazard here. While CDC lists the average height and weight at 5'3" and 172 lbs, the medians appear to be 5'3" and 161 lbs. That's a BMI of 28 and is considered overweight (25-30), not obese. Although I'll mention BMI is a pretty rough measure to begin with.

altairprime 7 hours ago | parent [-]

To provide context for those still using BMI as the sole 'fat or not' discriminator — the CDC published an n=9894 longitudinal study* about ten years ago; generally summarizing figure 1, the median starts around 0.53 +/- gender variance at 20-29, peaks at 0.62 +/- at 70-79, and then begins decreasing from there; however, they found that BMI fails to represent the 'fat' levels improperly (to our detriment) for people in their 40s (figure 2), as older human bodies tend to lose fat in areas (i.e. arms) that have no significant bearing on overall health, but gain fat in the abdomen (which other studies have shown does correspond to increasing cardiovascular issues). They show median waist-to-height-ratio data as 'monotonically increasing abdominal adipose tissue throughout the years of adulthood but decreasing mass in non-abdominal regions', which bodes very poorly for clothing manufacturers — because not only do you have to account for nine body shapes in women, but you also have to account for age skewing the waist-to-length ratios of the body shape further.

It would be particularly interesting to repeat this sizing study using the garment length to identify where it falls in 'height' median for women, and then identifying what 'age' median the garment's waistline is calibrated for. I can certainly guess what the results will be from personal experience on a per-retailer basis, and it would be a useful way to mathematically identify 'underserved niches' in today's market to target with appropriately-fit clothing (without a body scan).

* doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0172245 (2017) https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/44820

vpribish 5 hours ago | parent [-]

“BMI fails to represent the 'fat' levels improperly” - what is that supposed to say. I’m just done trying to understand things that the writer didn’t even read.

altairprime 5 hours ago | parent [-]

*properly. Apologies, logical negation errors are and always will be my bane in self-proofreading.

tirant 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I am really surprised about the sharp increase in body size by age in the USA.

I have just anecdotal experience here in Europe, but I know for a fact that all the females in my family have kept the same size since they were 16-18 years old. That’s also my experience with the male side of the family.

Gigachad 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Most adults in the US become physically inactive after they leave school/collage and move to an area where they have to drive everywhere, while sitting in an office the rest of the day.

While I'm well aware weight gain requires over consumption, I feel there is an under appreciated importance on being somewhat mobile rather than sitting/laying down for 23 hours a day

0xy 4 hours ago | parent [-]

You can live a completely sedentary lifestyle and lose or maintain weight through eating normal amounts of food. Exercise is not the problem, overeating consistently is.

For women, it's very common to consume sugary coffee flavored drinks and this behavior is glamorized on social media.

For men, the problem is worse.

Gigachad 4 hours ago | parent [-]

In theory sure, but teenagers love sugary drinks and burgers too, sugar drinks exist all over the world too where obesity rates are significantly lower. While you can be slim while sitting all day doing nothing, being physically active is massively important for your health.

The fact that the particular area you live in determines so much of the probability a person would be obese suggests the location plays a huge part. While sugary drinks are marketed and popular everywhere.

FarmerPotato 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I remember a survey of explanatory variables for obesity. The variable that explained more was the size of corn subsidies.

The hypothesis was: if you produce it, it will be consumed (Say's Law). Lower prices mean larger quantities demanded. (I know, it sounds like a confounding variable, you need a cross-sectional regression)

j-krieger 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yea, if you read between the lines in this article this stands out. Over half of all adult women don't fit into regular sizes. "Plus size" is not normal.

7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
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munificent 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I feel like a better angle would be educating people that 1500 kcal worth of Starbucks sugar for breakfast is not healthy.

An even better angle is educating Starbucks to stop selling unhealthy garbage.

The idea that all blame rests on individuals and corporations are blame-free is crazy. They have way more agency over what we consume than individuals do.

c22 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is an extremely hazardous opinion.

It is true that corporations spend vast resources attempting to lure consumers into their webs but you do have agency! You can resist!

Vote with your wallet and strip these bad actors of the power you handed to them when you gave up.

oceanplexian 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The idea that all blame rests on individuals and corporations are blame-free is crazy.

You know they have Starbucks in other countries without an obesity crisis?

No one is forcing you or I to order a particular drink at Starbucks; they literally put the number of calories directly next to the menu item. The blame is 100% on the individuals making their own health decisions.

munificent 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> The blame is 100% on the individuals making their own health decisions.

If you put a pile of junk food on the floor, your pet will eat it until they make themselves sick.

We are smarter than many animals and have more discipline. But we are still animals and do not have unlimited executive function. The people who architect the environment of incentives that surround us bear some amount of responsibility for the behavior those incentives create.

Denying that is denying that we are living beings subject to all of the same limitations as any other mortal animal. We are not spherical rational actors in a vacuum.

sleazebreeze 7 hours ago | parent [-]

You can't control the incentives, you can only control your reactions to those incentives.

bee_rider 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Just eyeballing a map, the countries that pop out as both having Starbucks and not having an obesity problem are China and India. Other than that, it looks like most of the countries that have Starbucks have obesity rates over, like, 20%, which seems pretty bad.

This isn’t to say Starbucks is causing obesity, of course. Most likely they are showing up together as the economy develops.

I do think it is worth noting that obesity is a pretty widespread problem, not uniquely American or anything like that.

WarmWash 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah but progressive ideals are a much harder sell if people have to take responsibility for their actions. "Others should pay for my mobility scooter because others keeps feeding me junk food" and all that.

Then again, free will is an illusion, so...

kccqzy 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That Starbucks probably saved my life after I made an unwise decision to bike 40 miles on an empty stomach. Bonking is real, and I’m glad they are allowed to sell the sugary beverages to prevent me from bonking.

Oh and I also fainted the first time I donated blood, because I did not know I should not donate blood while fasting. Again, sugary drinks helped.

Rendello 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I bonked in the middle of a 100km ride on a rail trail through farmer's fields. I thought I'd had enough food, since the same amount was sufficient for the initial trip out a few days earlier, but it wasn't. It was the return journey of my first big bike trip, and it was absolute hell after I bonked. I'd ride for twenty minutes, then lie on the ground for ten. When I was laying on the ground I'd be searching the vegetation for anything that looked vaguely edible.

Crazy how a glucose drop can sneak up and humble you so quickly!

tikhonj 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's a lot of area on the spectrum between where we are today and "sugary beverages are all banned".

For example, Starbucks could limit the sizes it sells and advertises—you'd still be able to have as much sugar as you would like by buying multiple drinks, but it would raise the activation energy needed to do that. Making the healthier choice the path of least resistance works wonders.

shimman 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You really can't discern between a healthy portion of sugar and an unhealthy portion of sugar? I can assure you it should be way less than what they are serving. Especially since society will bare these costs in a variety of unexpected ways, Starbucks needs to be compelled into doing so. They broke the societal compact, they have to be punished.

kccqzy 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I can discern it very well. And indeed I think for the people like me who can discern it, stores should be able to sell these sugary beverages. The same amount of sugar is unhealthy when I’m sedentary, but absolutely necessary in other cases.

queenkjuul 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You could just buy two less-sugary ones

shimman 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's fine but people like you are an extreme minority and I'd rather the government regulate the greed from these addiction companies rather than forcing tax payers to foot the bill.

Corporate welfare has to end.

lxgr 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

By that logic, should Starbucks also sell life-saving insulin and epi pens?

raincole 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You know multinational brands sell sweeter products in the US than in other countries?

It's not that all the rest of the world has sugar tax or something. It's customer profile.

[0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32576300/ [1]: https://www.itiger.com/news/1184332557

burgerzzz 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Christ man, do you wake up every morning and pray while facing Washington DC and ask for guidance as to whether or not you should drink battery acid? People are responsible for their fucking decisions!

dang 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm guessing that you meant this in a semi-humorous and hyperbolic way rather than a mean way, but it would probably be good to review the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. A comment like this wouldn't need too much to come across as friendly rather than aggressive.

toomuchtodo 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

GLP-1s disprove this to an extent. Personal responsibility is based on a fallacy, it’s just brain chemistry.

So give everyone GLP-1s to cast the shadow of personality responsibility (reduction in adverse reward center operations, broadly speaking) through better brain chemistry. Existence is hard, we can twiddle the wetware to make it less hard.

diath 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The only thing that GLP-1 agonists prove is that CICO does indeed work - if you force yourself into a caloric deficit through the inhibition of hunger hormones using drugs that you will lose weight. It has nothing to do with people choosing to eat highly processed unhealthy foods over healthier options. When you're on Ozempic or peptides like Retatrutide/Tirzepatide you don't think "I will not eat a bag of chips today because it's unhealthy and calorie dense", you simply don't think about eating because your feeling of hunger is inhibited.

toomuchtodo 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You are incorrect. GLP-1s modify food desires as well. “Will power” is merely hormone levels in this regard.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

> Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) are increasingly used for type 2 diabetes and obesity treatment. Their effects on appetite and satiety are well established, but less is known about their associations with food purchases. Case reports and small observational studies suggest that GLP-1RA initiation is associated with altered preferences from highly processed, energy-dense products to minimally processed foods. We examined whether initiation of GLP-1RAs for treatment was associated with changes in nutritional quality and processing level of supermarket purchases.

> Changes in purchasing patterns after GLP-1RA initiation were seen across most nutrient categories. Opposed to comparisons, after the first prescription, participants purchased fewer calories, sugars, saturated fats, and carbohydrates, alongside modestly more protein. The share of ultraprocessed foods also decreased. Although modest at the individual level, these changes may accumulate at the population level, particularly given increasing GLP-1RA use.

diath 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Food desires are simply addictions like smoking. If you cease consuming high amounts of processed food and sugar (through the inhibition of hunger), then you also kill these cravings.

KittenInABox 6 hours ago | parent [-]

GLP-1 functioning as methodone is fine for me tbh. Medically assisted addiction management is pretty gold-standard for a lot of addictions!

JoshTriplett 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The only thing that GLP-1 agonists prove is that CICO does indeed work

This is incorrect, as demonstrated over and over again. For many people's bodies, consuming less will result in the body changing its metabolism to burn less, and not dipping into fat stores. Conversely, for many people's bodies, exercising more does not in fact change their metabolism and the amount of energy they burn. (There are studies that going from "zero" to "not zero" makes a meaningful difference, but "not zero" to "quite active" often doesn't.) "CICO" is not useful or actionable for many people.

slopinthebag 5 hours ago | parent [-]

That there is variance in energy expenditure both within a population and within a person over time doesn't mean that a caloric deficit doesn't work. It just means that using a single scalar value (which is usually a gross estimate) to drive your caloric intake is a poor approach.

The body has means to regulate it's energy expenditure to maintain homeostasis, and in some people it can be a hundreds of kcal difference. But if you're trying to lose body fat on a 10% estimated deficit and fail, the conclusion shouldn't be that a 20% deficit will also fail.

JoshTriplett 5 hours ago | parent [-]

For some people, a 50% "deficit" fails. And the entire concept of "X workout burns Y calories" is completely bunk. Again, there have been multiple studies to this effect.

ses1984 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Are you actually saying some people don’t lose weight on a 50% caloric deficit? Is there any evidence of that?

4 hours ago | parent [-]
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4 hours ago | parent [-]
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slopinthebag 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's not physically possible for a 50% deficit to fail, what you probably mean is that their energy expenditure was incorrectly estimated at +50%.

JoshTriplett 4 hours ago | parent [-]

No, what I mean is that their body's energy expenditure changed in response to the change in their caloric intake, with no other changes taking place.

slopinthebag 4 hours ago | parent [-]

The body may try to maintain homeostasis but 50% sounds way too high. Someone with a tdee of 2200 kcal will not be able to maintain their weight at 1100 calories for very long.

JoshTriplett 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Adaptation in energy expenditure includes both metabolic adaptation as well as "NEAT" ("non-exercise activity thermogenesis"); the latter includes subconscious changes in posture, fidgeting, and various other things that can increase/decrease the body's energy expenditure by a massive degree, in an effort to (as far as people can tell) maintain a "set point" in the body that is difficult to change. This set point resists both weight gain and weight loss, both attempting to resist the change in the first place and attempting to undo it if successful.

I'm not suggesting that it's impossible to lose weight through sufficiently large caloric restriction. I'm observing that it is not anywhere close to as simple as "CICO", because CO is heavily a function of CI, rather than the popular incorrect perception of CO being things like "exercise".

slopinthebag 43 minutes ago | parent [-]

Neat can maybe explain a couple hundred kcal variance in most people, perhaps there are exceptions but 50%? I've never seen that in the literature.

Calories in calories out is just the summation of expenditure and intake, just because the body is complex and there are many interdependent factors doesn't mean it cant be resolved to a vector which determines weight gain/loss. The problem is people google a tdee calculator, get some scalar which is likely wrong, perhaps substantially, make lifestyle changes, and then have an expectation of some result in a specific timeline that isn't realistic, and then eat a bunch of sodium, put on 2 lbs in their "deficit", and think the diet made them fatter! Or they read that -3500kcal == -1lb fat, calculate their calories burned from the machines at the gym, and get frustrated when it doesn't work (I'm guilty!).

Weight loss is actually really hard because it really just requires a sustained effort over a long period of time to achieve anything. You might not see any results for weeks as your body adjusts, you get your diet locked in, etc. And since your weight can vary so much day to day, it's hard to stay motivated. Ozempic kind of bypasses these problems. You know what else works? 20k steps a day and eating on a backpacker budget :P

whackernews 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Eh? I mean, this sounds potentially interesting but I don’t understand it!

toomuchtodo 7 hours ago | parent [-]

“We fixed the glitch.”

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12742762/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003193842...

https://time.com/7340807/history-debate-insurance-glp-1s/

https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/the-growing-scientific-cas...

The consistency that I'm hearing from all across patient groups is gain of control, whereas previously, there was a loss of control… All of a sudden they're able to step back and say, 'oh, well I had this shopping phenomenon that was going on, gambling, addiction, or alcoholism, and all of a sudden, it just stopped,'

- Dr. Gitanjali Srivastava, Vanderbilt Medical Center

5 hours ago | parent [-]
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munificent 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Read my comment more carefully.

If a company put a giant a giant bollard in the middle of the interstate and someone hit it, are you saying that the company bears zero responsibility for that?

cucumber3732842 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Are millions of people voluntarily paying money to hit the bollard daily or thereabouts when not hitting the bollard is free and takes less time out of their day?

Yeah it would be better if everyone just didn't eat crap but crap is what people want.

mbeavitt 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Having briefly experienced weight loss drugs - and the bliss of that constant “EAT!” voice in your head just going quiet - I’m pretty convinced most humans have a genuine genetic predisposition to overeating.

And when you zoom out to the population level, the “we’re all autonomous individuals” argument gets a lot shakier. Like yeah, at the individual level you have agency, you make choices, fine. But at scale? We are absolutely at the mercy of whoever has figured out how to tickle our monkey brains in just the right way to get us buying their fattening food.

albedoa 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> They have way more agency over what we consume than individuals do.

I walk by Starbucks every day without consuming 1500 kcal worth of Starbucks. You think that's due to their agency??

queenkjuul 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can be in perfect shape and still not find clothes that fit. The issue IS the sizes.

bloaf 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Expecting mass-market, lowest-common-denominator products to be tailored to your special circumstance is the issue.

Normalize going to a tailor, instead of grumbling about how you aren't benefiting enough from the sweatshops mass retailers are running.

WesleyJohnson 5 hours ago | parent [-]

But they're not lowest-common-denominator products. If they were, clothing designers would be tailoring clothes for a rectangular figure. The article clearly shows that only 12% of women have that "hourglass" figure and yet, by design, almost all the clothing manufacturers are tailoring their clothes for this shape, regardless of size.

bloaf 5 hours ago | parent [-]

You think companies are all deliberately leaving big money on the table by making hourglass clothes as an oopsie?

They're doing it because people are buying clothes based on superficial appearance, and most people prefer the aesthetics of the hourglass shape.

Rectangular clothing doesn't sell as well because it doesn't look as good on a mannequin even if it fits better.

8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
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Insanity 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah I wanted to point out the same. This sizing problem is not as prevalent outside of the US/Mexico (leaders in obesity).

It’s less prevalent in EU and even less so in some East Asian countries.