Are clothes manufacturers to blame for the rise in obesity?

When I was a child (born in 1951, so after the war) there were hardly any overweight people and only one obese child in my Secondary school. He was teased and tormented terribly and my mother told me that he had 'gland' trouble. I was such a skinny kid that some one asked my mother if she was feeding me enough! Both my parents were slim, too. Our diets were different back then, chips were cooked in dripping or lard, our Full English Sunday breakfast was cooked in lard and we ate butter or dripping on our bread. Margarine was kept for baking with. Butchers left all the fat on the meat - no cutting it off in those days - and the breeding of cattle, sheep and pigs was not interfered with to get a leaner animal. We seemed to have been on a high fat, low carb diet even then! There wasn't the choice of food that we have now, we tended to have more of what was in season and grown in the UK. There were no cooking oils and Olive Oil was either Popeye's girlfriend or an earache remedy, we wouldn't have dreamed of using it to cook with! So maybe our waist lines have developed and grown along with the expanding food choices that we now have.

HildaW DH has a theory that today's designers prefer skinny, shapeless models because they simply don't know how to cut or tailor clothes properly for real women, have no idea about darts and fit.

Olive oil was found in the bathroom cabinet, narrowboatnan, next to the cottonwool!

I have long been convinced that designers design for clothes pegs because they do not have the skill to design clothes to fit and flatter a normally shaped woman.

Olive oil was bought in Boots because they started off as, what the French call an 'epicerie' a shop that sold herbs and spices used on herbal medecine.

In the 1950s my mother bought most of her individual curry spices from them, olive oil (for cooking), They sold dietetic foods, chocolate and sweeteners for those with diabetes pus gluten free products.

Callisemon…….. its crossed my mind too especially as I set myself the task of tailoring myself a suit...took months but enjoyed the challenge, its amazing how a flattering a proper fit is. I also learned that a good tailor has a very close relationship with their iron, careful ironing can really help the fabric mould to the curves.

When I was first researching my books (mid 1990's) I found articles about how the fashion and diet industries influence ideas and, of course, marketing. Many have the same stakeholders.

Hand in hand, they decided to 'downsize' that is, make sure the measurements which applied to a size 10, now applied to Size 8, under the guise of boosting self esteem (hahaha).

About the same time, the American system of measuring 'overweight' 'obese' and 'morbidly obese' (despite what you have been led to believe they are NOT all the same) was upsized.

So that meant a whole swathe of people who were within the misleadingly named "healthy range" were now listed as 'overweight'.
I'm always tempted to ask, 'Over WHAT weight?'

Callistemon I am not saying I give any credence to this theory but I once worked with a Fashion Editor who believed all the top houses (of that time) designed for thin, shapeless women models, because they (the designers) were gay and that's the shape they looked at as perfection.

Bradfordgirl Christian Dior was gay, but having been to the Dior exhibition at the V&A this summer and having seen the exhibition of Grace Kelly and Dior at the Dior Museum in France this summer (and the 20 or so preceding ones). He most certainly designed for womanly shaped women (think New Look).

Or may be he was the exception that proves the rule.

No , I blame the food manufacturers. They make a fortune out of our taste for fatty sweet foods. Like doughnuts.

GG54, I note your post about fatties, well I remember in another post you gave your weight and height. Having checked it out on the NHS chart you would therefore define yourself as a fatty.

Yes Barmeyoldbat I fit into the overweight category although if you saw me me, you very probably wouldn't think so.

I'm a 16 top and 14 bottom (a couple of months ago I was 18/16) but it all depends on where I buy my clothes and what style they are.
I never wear 'loose' or baggy figure- skimming clothes and can quite happily tuck tops into my non- elastic waistband without overspill or back fat.
I'm happy to be the weight I am and have never been skinny.
I was a 12/14 in my late teens.

Designers create apparel for specific individuals, all shapes and sizes- For a price- They've also featured voluptuous collections over the years- But for whatever the reason slender figures are more commonly used to present their designs- Slender = Elegant, it seems- In their eyes- It's as if the preference was inspired by art deco, then adopted and hasn't changed much since- Prior to that, fuller figures were featured-

Currently, and for the last 40 years, not slender, but unrealistically tall and thin. Do you not remember 'heroine chic'?

I reckon that if we take a minimum height of 5ft 8inches for a clothes model and say at that height they should not be smaller than a size 10 and then go up one size with every two inches of height (this based on my 6ft, size 14 DiL who is tall and slim without being emaciated),

This would provide tall slim models who could show a designer's ouevre to perfection on women who actually look like real women.

The culprit is (wait for it) dieting
A century or more ago, being “well covered” equated to prosperity, the poor were rarely overweight because they walked far more than nowadays, the majority had a lifetime of physical labour and adequate food was mostly the best they could hope for.
So what has happened since the turn of the 20th century?
The aspirational body image is slim (“ you can’t be too rich or too thin”) we have vastly increased leisure and we have (mostly) enough to eat
But we want to be slim so we cut calories >body goes into famine mode>metabolism adjusts> start eating “normally” > weight piles back on.
It can start as early as childhood, so the only solution for the future is for children and young people not to get to that stage in the first place. Bring back walking to school, running around sport in schools and playing in the open air in the countryside or parks. Lose junk food, slumping in front of the TV or screen time - and most of all, set a good example.

Is there a solution for us? I am not sure that there is despite the miles and miles of column inches written on the subject.
I fear once we have started any sort of diet we are condemned to live with pushing a lettuce leaf round a plate .

I rather think that your NHS chart calculation is a tad awry Barmeyoldbat
I looked at it befirecwriting my initial post and I, at 5-6.5 scrape in at the 'healthy' margin.
I wonder why you felt the need to check back at my previous posts and then Google the NHS website.
Did you think I'd mind you labelling me as a fatty?
You can label me with whatever description you like, it matters not a jot but it tells me a lot about the kind of person you are.
I'm totally impervious to jibes.

befirecwriting before writing

My story

this is the best BMI calculator

Try it.

I haven't read all this interesting thread but just want to add that I was always told that Jaeger, Liberty and other upmarket brands used more fabric in their clothes and that an expensive 12 was really a 14!!
I still believe that. I was also reminded that if I didn't like the size label, I could rip it out.

My DGC are as slim and active as ever we were.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201908/medium-442518-screenshot-20190829-100412-chrome.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201908/medium-554797-screenshot-20190829-074200-chrome.jpg

Well, just done that calculation Gonegirl and it's totally different to the one on my weight chart app and differs from my digital scales.
I weigh myself every morning before food and see little change in my BF or BMI.
Here's the BMI chart you linked, yet Barmeyoldbat has looked at the NHS chart and declares me to be a fatty.
None of it adds up as the NHS chart doesn't take age into account, nor do my scales.

There is no such thing as 'best' BMI calculator. The whole use of BMI is fraught through with flaws. The person who developed BMI was an economist measuring populations and coming out with an average. He then used these average statistics to compare the relative level of BMI to assess levels of poverty in countries.

Now I am not going to enter into any arguments about the relevance of the figures he drew up or their original use. What I am saying is that they were never meant to be used at an individual level only a group level.

When you use BMI tat an individual level you end with a situation where two thirds of the calculations are wrong. Only a third of BMi measurements are accurate for the person concerned. One third say people who are not overweight are, (the classic muscle bound hunk is the usual example given, but this group also includes those with a very broad shouldered, big bodied, short legged build.

The last group are told they have a healthy BMI when they are aactually overweight. People with light narrow frames, of which I am one.

My BMI tells me I am in the healthy weight range, when any one looking at me in a state of undress, with my comfortable built in upholstery, would say I was overweight.

When I was at work they had a health exhibition where your body fat was measured with calipers. I was told that I needed to lose 7 - 10lbs to get down to a healthy weight. This was roughly 1 stone below what is now described as my maximum healthy BMI weight.

Monica the chart I linked to has been well researched. It takes things like shrinkage with age into the calculations. It is a recent development, and I think it is the best.

Of course, there will be no convincing you. But that's ok. Others might find it helpful.

Gonegirl, you are right. I am an economist, I understand the source and intended use for the statistic when first drawn up and its limitations. I also understand why the medical use of this statistic is based on a complete misunderstanding of how it works. www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106268439&t=1567089732287

I also know that if I took any notice of my BMI score I would be complacently overweight, which I am not.

MawB, yes, dieting. My friend's a good example. She's been on an almost life-long yoyo diet, hardly seems to eat enough, yet has steadily put on weight.