The vanity sizing scandal

 

It’s hard to describe the horror a person feels at being betrayed by his/ her own underpants

THANK GOODNESS Fardel is almost back from his travels. People have often said to me (one said this as recently as Friday) that the best bits of this website are often the commentators, not the host.

Too true. This column is teamwork. You write the stuff. I get paid for it.

*
In the meantime, I have had some personal bad news.

The global obesity epidemic has claimed another victim. It’s me. I ate a chocolate muffin with my morning coffee. This was a MAJOR tactical error. I’d barely finished the last mouthful when I expanded, Alice-like, to about ten times my normal size.

The horrific thing was that this took place shortly before a scheduled meeting with the person who knows me most intimately: my tailor. Too embarrassed to let him see me as a grotesque, lumbering giant, I postponed my appointment for a month to give myself time for drastic action.

Then I went to the shops to buy some off-the-peg clothes. Now you may think that buying clothes in order to visit a tailor is silly and illogical, but may I remind you that a wide range of scientists (including creationists) agree that the largest single substance in the universe is Male Vanity.

So I spent half an hour trying on a range of clothes at a department store. I was delighted with the results, discovering that I was only two inches (four cm) larger than I had been as a student. All those years of dedicated, round-the-clock curry-eating had expanded my waistline only slightly, from 28 to 30 inches.

Over dinner that evening, my bubble was burst by reader Kim Ho, who said: “Don’t you know about size inflation? If a woman buys a size 14 dress now, it’s labeled size 12 or 10 or even eight.”

Unnerved by this, I waited till she had gone before whipping off my clothes and investigating, using a ruler from my kids’ school bag. She was right. All the “30 inch” garments I had bought were actually size 33, 34 or more!

It’s hard to describe the horror a man feels when he is betrayed by his own underpants.

This needed investigating. A friend in the garment industry who wants to go unnamed so she can stay alive, confirmed the truth of Kim’s allegations, and spilled another secret: “Mirrors in in-store dressing rooms are concave. They trick you into thinking you are skinnier than you are.”

She referred me to a gentleman named Rod Collins, who has published research on vanity sizing. Deliberately mislabeled clothes are a massive health scandal, he claims, adding: “A man with a 34- to 36-inch waist doubles his risk of diabetes. How do 99.9 per cent of men know their waist size? By the trousers they wear.”

Shocked by all this, I retired for some comfort to the coffee shop where this journey of discovery had started. “Just give me a small coffee,” I said. The girl at the counter said: “You mean tall.”

“No, small,” I repeated. But then I looked at the display. The smallest ones had all been relabeled “tall”. The larger ones all had stupid fake Italian names, such as grande, venti, enormo, voluptuo, humungo, lardo, obesito, etc.

I was reminded about the way that US burger chain Wendy’s famously relabeled their large portions “medium” (and their regular customers “whales”).

What does this prove? It shows that all business people are crooks and should be locked up for life. I was so angry about this that I needed an obesito-sized coffee to help me calm down.

AND a chocolate muffin.

 

Technorati Tags: vanity sizing

Comments

[Mel]

Sigh... Oh why did you have to burst the bubble when I was so conveniently leaving in tobaiti world.

[TS]

In Europe I seem to fit nicely into anything labelled Medium, while in South East Asia I need to go for Large or even Extra Large.

[fardel]

Welcome to the Club!
I wanted to put on pants which I had forgotten in the closet.
Hum! I did not wear this for a while.
When I tried to put them on, they would not go higher than half way up the thigh.
Sigh!
It was only a few years ago

[Ellen]

I found the article above rather shocking. Surely it must be illegal to deliberately mislead customers like that? and I agree with rod collins, this is a matter of health and safety. When I get home i am going to measure my clothes and see if I have been tricked like other people. thansk for alerting us to this.

[Julie]

Fardel, that problem has been experienced by a few of us. I am confident that in time scientists will be able to advise of us better ways to store clothes so that they are not subject to closet shrinkage.

[sej]

A while ago, I lost a lot of weight, so I thought, I'd try on some of my old clothes, and yeah, some of them fit... just... until I started walking around in an old pair of jeans...

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrip....

There went the seam!

[Uli]

Presently I need clothes larger every few weeks as my baby-boy is growing fast in my belly....
I sympathise with you, Nury.
And I do wish now for a chocolate muffin !

[Vince A]

Ah, the mysteries that Nury uncover. That could be the explanation why my shoe size has gotten larger over the years.

I'm sure my feet have stopped growing since I settled on size 10 many many years ago. But these days they won't go into anything marked smaller than 11 1/2.

In light of Nury's observation, things suddenly fell into place.

When one is asked "what size sir?", it feels good to say "eleven and a half", because, you know what they say about men with large shoes.

[yours truly]

Follow me my friends. Like me you use loincloth. It is very good and easy to use. One size fit all times, even when you fat or thin. Simple design and low cost. My wife wise woman, make me loincloth from the old curtain cloth. I like it.

But, problem is my below house chap. He make lot of noise last week. I put loincloth on window for dry. He came up and make big noise. He say, loincloth cover below window and he not can see climate outside window. Stupid neighbour chap. I ask "What climate in Hong Kong, eh ? Only lubsub wind from Schenzen outside window?"

I know real reason why he angry. His wife get ohh-lah-lah feel when she my loin cloth hanging down. Poor man, what can he do. All woman get feeling~feeling like that with me.

[Minkha]

Uli, congratulations to you and your husband!

Yours truly, thanks again for a great post. You do make me laugh!

I discovered the producers’ trick some time ago (and the mirror one) and since I travel a bit and buy my clothes in different places I found out that I have quite a variety of sizes, ranging from US ‘zero’(which is Asian ‘M’) up to European 38. The same with shoes. It’s crazy!
I am a bit conscious of my weight so I check if I am the same size by trying on my old dress every couple of months. If it still fits, I can sleep in peace.
But I discovered something else – if you have an office job – your bottom starts expanding with time, regardless of whether you’ve put on weight or not!
And my shoe size is bigger than 10 years ago… Hm…
But anyway – I admit I am a bit obsessed, so I manage to stay in control of my weight, but not everyone is like that and bearing in mind how much of unhealthy food we have available these days it is scary to think how many people have serious health problems related to obesity!
I live in the UK now and I think about 80 % of population are overweight. My colleagues are constantly dieting, but their typical lunch needs to include a packet of crisps and ‘virtually fat free’ mayo salad dressing. They consider this healthy…
We really should be a bit more conscious of what we eat. I probably sound like a doctor, but this comes from my experience of high cholesterol and acid reflux…

[sej]

Nury,

I was just thinking about your last paragraph where you mention business people are just simple crooks... you might be right...

A google search suggested 1 in 10 managers are psychopaths. Although, whilst I can't find it now, I thought I had seen an article which suggested the number was actually closer to something like 1 in 3.

Normally, we associate pschopaths with criminals, particularly violent ones, but really, it is just someone who shows narcisstic, amoral, anti-social, aggressive type of behaviour. And it seems that criminally directed psychopaths who end up in jail tend to be lesser educated, whilst the better educated psychopaths tend to end up successful business people.

So, the magic question... are business people *criminal-ish* psychopaths too?? Hmm... have to think about that one.

BTW, who started this global financial crisis anyway?

Yours Truly, may I suggest one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koteka

[Nury]

The statistics in comments above are mindblowing.

Minkha, you say that most people in the UK are overweight -- I looked up the stats and you are right. It is over 50 per cent in some recent surveys. The weird thing is that if you look at older surveys (1970s, 1980s), the number of obese people is really small. So it is has all happened suddenly in a single generation.

That means that tiny people (Sri Lankans, Filipinos, Thais etc) could be massive next generation.

Sej, your stats are amazing too. I thought you were joking when you said that a significant number of business people are psychopaths. But the more I think about it, the more I reckon you are not exaggerating at all.

As Ellen says, the 'vanity sizing' thing is a pretty serious scandal

[Nury]

By the way, yours truly, the thing that sej is suggesting you wear is a penis sheath.

If I were you, I would stick to the longhi

[Rika]

Yeah, when you want to move to the UK you really have to consider from where you are coming.

I love living here and I rarely go back to Germany. Although I try to take care of my weight: In Germany I will always be a chubby cow, while here in UK I am a slim godess! Yay!

I however have some Asian friends and they have to shop in kids departments.

I recommend Internet shopping. You use your own mirror and the light - oh the light is so important... and they have sizing charts. Those may vary as well, but at least one can translate the sizes into inch or cm

BTW: Feet do gain fat - loads of it. When I was 2 stone (about 13kg) more I was carrying at least half of it around the feet - well, and the other half on the bum. I can absolutely confirm Minkha's theory of the growing bum. Mine definitely has taken the shape of the chair!

[sej]

Yours Truly,

Nury's probably right. I went following some of the links after my posting... and... aahh... yeah, well... whilst not NOT for the feint hearted, certainly, you don't want to have your easily shocked glasses on.

And Nury,

They've actually done studies on this pschopathic thing in managers, and it's far more prevalent than we realise.

[fardel]

Hi Uli
congratulations!
But beware: the moment an embryo develops a brain, it becomes a human being .
He/she catches every sound from his/her environment and is very sensitive to the movements of your body;
In the last months of your pregnancy , it might be wise to avoid this site, if you do not want the baby to believe that his mother is crazy , laughing all the time.
When you give birth, if he child comes out bursting in laughter, instead of crying, like other babies do, you will know that you have spent too much time on this columns.

The good side is that you will have a permanently happy baby

[Thomas Bailey]

The British Standards Institute has drafted a brilliant solution to this problem. The new labels, described under BS-EN13402, have a pictogram with actual measurements in centimeters. Work began in 1996, and the new standard was ready for publication in 2003. This was done initially to deal with the multitude of sizing schemes currently in use. It was decided that a pictogram would be used to deal with the multitude of languages, and that the measurements would be in centimeters, used by 95% of the world's population. This standard has four parts. Part 1 identifies body parts to be measured. Part 2 specifies which measurements are applicable to the item. Part 3 specifies the sizing interval, and part 4 compresses the data to a 4-character code for ordering. I think part 1 alone would be enough. Part 2 could be deduced, parts 3 and 4 could be left to the designer. The 4-character code would work if ordering by telephone or text messaging. If ordering via internet, measurements could be input directly. If the orders come from the USA, Canada, or the UK, customers must be reminded to use centimeters.

[Buy Accutane]

Very excellent.Welcome to the Club!
I wanted to put on pants which I had forgotten in the closet.