Are clothes manufacturers to blame for the rise in obesity?

Callistemon

I was 5ft 7ins and just about 8 stone when I was ill in the months after the birth of my first DD. I was taken into hospital and given bed-rest and a special diet. I didn't have anorexia, btw, I had just become very run down for several reasons.

Two words only to answer OP’s question

Stretchy waistbands ???

We boomers (I was born in 1950) were born in a time of rationing and were almost universally skinny. I don't think meal portions were anything like as large as people tend to have now either.
In the 60s, many of my clothes came from Biba and Bus Stop and were size 8 - I was really tiny back then and weighed less than 6 stone at 18 but didn't look unusual at all - we were just like that in those post-war times.
We didn't eat on the streets, don't forget (common!) as so many do now, nor guzzle coffee constantly, or buy ready-made calorie-laden sandwiches. So yes - our upbringing and food experiences were different back then.
Now I'm about a size 12, still don't eat a lot but after middle age one's shape changes. I get cross with doctors' proclamations that any waist measurement over 30" is dangerous heart-wise. Maybe if you're only 35 years old, but after 55-60 it's quite usual to be bigger in the centre even if you're healthy and of normal weight.

GuestCorrectly - Yes, there was always a size 8, especially at Biba and at Ossie Clarke. I still have an Ossie Clarke silk georgette blouse in size 8. (Carefully wrapped in tissue)

Paddyan Think I have previously commented on how sizing has grown over the years. I too have a few clothes from 60s/70s. I am 5'6" and in 1970 weighed 8 st 2 lbs. My dress size was 12. Now I would probably be an 8. A few years ago work was having a 79s night. A young colleague whom I regarded as being so thin size 6 it was impossible for her to have room for all the human bits and pieces. Offered her a dress thinking it would be far too big. Came in room after trying it on, too small, couldn't get the zip up. I was dumbfounded. So where does that leave my current size 14!

Disagree with the posters remarks that if larger sizes were old fashioned people would be encouraged to lose weight.

The above statement to me smacks of prejadice, people are big for all sorts of reasons including health,,depression and in some cases people like me a proud size 16 who dresses well and has a style that is edgy.

Remarks like the above are just spiteful. What are people suggesting that if people are big we should single them out by making them wear frumpy clothes. I embrace my size and appearance and woe betide any skinny older person,which is not flattering telling me I should lose weight. I too was a size 10 when younger. My extra weight is down to medication, which keeps me well and as I said above I embrace it.

The better you feel about yourself the more likely you are to make lifestyle changes.

Hard to feel good about yourself wearing a sack!

Not to blame they are only interested in making sales. It is just too, too much food - eating anytime anywhere. Nobody is ever supposed to be hungry. When I was in primary school (50's) there was only 1 child who was anything less than skinny - (he would be lighter than most today) - and that was because he lived with his rather immobile Gran and had snacks. I do know there is a lot more to weight than just this, but what children experience IS formative.

I understand that clothes sizes were originally fixed as percentages of the "normal population" - worked out from average sizes. As average sizes have increased (due to food being cheaper and more plentiful, junk food, less physical work, the Pill, and generally more sedentary lives), the measurements have changed to reflect the new norms. I read recently that the average women's size in the UK is now a 16 - not that you'd ever suspect that from the advertisers!

I never considered myself skinny, a lot of girls at school were a lot thinner than me, I don’t know what I weighed, because we never had scales, but I was always a size 10. The first time I remember being weighed was after having my first child in hospital, I was 7st 12. I don’t think clothes manufacturers help, but I think it’s down to us, eating too much, not being active enough, I’ll certainly never see 7st 12 again.

Not so sure about Marilyn Monroe being a size 14. Saw some of her actual clothes at an exhibition and I would guess closer to today's size 10 with a small waist and good but not huge boobs. She was also quite small, maybe abt 5'2". She sure packed a lot into that gorgeous body.

Clothing sizes have changed quite significantly in recent decades as evidenced by the sizing on vintage clothes. If some of us (including me!) are not actually taller most of us are definitely heavier. My mother and grandmother weighed between 40 and 50 kgs all their lives. Please pass the Prosecco. ??

The rise in obesity I due to one thing only. People overeating. Contributary factors are everyone now seems to drive everywhere, people want more instant food instead of cooking, kids have more money to buy sweets etc, takeaways everywhere, people sit around playing on phones and internet, kids are given into more as parents don't like to say no. In the 50s it was very different and a much healthier lifestyle

My mother who was a diminutive 5’1” when she was in the army during the 2nd world war.... once showed me her army ‘pay book’ or some such thing that she’d kept. Her bust was 34 and her waist was 20..... she was 26 years old with a year old child( my eldest sister) at the time. Obviously we need to bring back rationing!

These days I wear what fits irrespective of what number there happens to be on the label. I have sizes 10 to 18 in the wardrobe and they all seem to fit.

When I was little wore Liberty bodice. In my teens graduated to a tight girdle. These sometimes had a crutch. My daughter when she was little called them “tin knickers”! All of these had suspenders attached. At one time there were things called waspies (wasp waist). It was fashionable to have a big bust and narrow waist. No wonder women’s shapes and sizes have changed.
I remember that my sister was shocked when I first wore trousers.
Now it seems to be the fashion to wear dresses barely covering bust and bottom. It used to take two and a half yards of material but now would take barely a metre.

I think there was a lot of corset wearing years ago

My mother fluctuated between a size 10 and 12 until the menopause, when she put on weight that she never lost again. She had a 22 inch waist most of her life, I beat her by and inch when I was seventeen. One of my schoolfriends at that time had a 20 inch waist and a bosom that woke my envy!

In my childhood I remember and photos bear me out that while my paternal grandmother was quite slim, most ladies her age had what was called "a matronly figure". In other words, no waist to speak of if they were not wearing their corsets, which of course they usually were, and a prominent bosom.

Come to think of it, Grannie's slimness may have been mainly owing to her salmon pink boned corset that laced all the way down the front. I clearly remember seeing the garment on its way to the wash.

As far as I remember dress patterns were sold either in Junior miss, styles and sizes as opposed to ladies styles and sizes.

I remember one or two elderly ladies who were spoken of as stout - actually, they were fat, but there were not nearly as many large people as we see now.

I think a lot of the mature ladies of my childhood probably were fairly heavy women, they tended to dress in skirts and jackets or cardigans or in fitted dresses sewn in panels that did not overly emphasise their waistline.

The generations could be clearly recognised by their clothes, young women, my mother and her age group fwore brighter clothes and flared or gathered skirts, unless they had what was called a fuller figure, when they adopted the styles worn by their mothers and aunts, but not the colours.
Grandmothers and great aunts dressed in navy blue, grey, brown or black. Grannie had a very dashing navy blue straw hat that I clearly remember, and I have a vision of a black summer dress with tiny white polka dots, but try as I will I cannot see the face of the wearer.

My other grandmother was a widow of long standing and wore for preference a small pill-box hat with an eye-veil.
Other ladies of their age wore round felt hats, rather like our hated school ones, or the slightly more sightly felt hats sewn in triangular wedges that the district nurses and midwives adopted when they got tired of their felt pill-boxes.

I doubt clothes manufacturers are responsible for our weight, but certainly now when people are not restricted to dressing appropriately for an age group the merits and demerits of our figures are perhaps easier to spot.

I have a very expensive skirt bought in the 70s. I tried it on recently and it was wayyyy to small.
Not the manufactures fault. I just love my delicious food.

the merits and demerits of our figures are perhaps easier to spot

What an elegant way to put it grandtante

Maybe I should have said have clothes manufacturers INFLUENCED the rise in obesity ? The people who weren't around in the 60's or before think that a size 14 and a 30-32 inch waist is "normal" and maybe it is now .My image obsessed mother used to warn us that there was no excuse for any woman to have a "tummy" ,she would have been horrified to know my waist is 27" ...lol

Marilyn Monroe's measurements I seem to remember were 36-24-36. I achieved that in my early twenties with the help of a tight girdle. She probably wore one too.
Nowadays my measurements are more like the opposite:
63-42-63. I am a size 16, but in summer I like to wear a size 18 for the looseness and comfort. Who cares about your size when you are in your 70s!

I am 5ft 6in and weighed 7st 6lb from adulthood until I was nearer 40yo, apart from pregnancy. My wedding dress was a size 10 and even then it was loose on me. My younger dd tried on my wedding dress and despite her being two inches shorter than me and a size 8, she couldn't do it up! Though it be fair, she is much more generously endowed in the bust dept than me.

I weigh more now than I ever have, due to essential medication, but I'd rather be well than thin.

Grannybags do you REALLY think a way to encourage people to lose weight is to only make them frumpy clothes???

I think that’s one of the most horrible ideas I’ve ever heard !

So thinner people can be smart or trendy or fashionable and fat people have to wear ....what? Only black? Sack cloth and ashes? Next we’ll be suggesting fat people really shouldn’t be seen outside or fat people should be banned from purchasing any food not currently deemed healthy??

Totally self defeating in my opinion .you cannot force someone to lose weight by restricting their clothing choices .

I am 5 '1" and I weigh a lot, a whole big old lot. I wear cheap nasty vest tops and tight cheap leggings. I smoke and drink. I drink infront of GK, I might even branch out into other substances.

I really can’t believe that draconian undergarments were the reason that ladies of yesteryear were slimmer than us.
Whenever I try to wear a figure shaping bit of kit the wobbly bits ooze out all over the place? I’m a modern day size12, occasionally 14 - in the olden days that was probably 22/24.
Thank goodness manufacturers have kept up. Well done them?
My granny used to wear a pink contraption and she was skin and bones.