I find this scary.

I compared two pairs of jeans, both size 12.

The pair of jeans that is size 12 from the Gap is five years old, and the last time I wore them was five years ago when I weighed 160 pounds. I took and ruler and measured. The spread between button and button hole on the top of the jeans is TEN inches. I am not even close to being able to fasten them.

The other pair of jeans is size 12 from Target, and they are hanging off me. I now weigh 190.1 pounds.

So I pulled out a size of old Karen Kane jeans, size 14. These are about ten years old. I cannot even fasten them without sucking in my breath.

This is not a matter of jeans cut differently. These are dramatically different sizes. It seems that this sort of dramatic vanity sizing leads to an increase in obesity just as surely as eating fast food every day.

I see threads where people say "size 12 is not obese." Well, as an obese woman with a BMI of 31.6 wearing size "12" Target jeans that are so loose I have to wear a belt to keep them from slipping off, it depends on the jeans.

I am annoyed because size 12, even with Vanity Sizing, should certainly not be too big. Then I can go buy a pair of 10 jeans and kid myself that I am a 10. If sizes were consistent with what they were a few years ago, I would be wearing a size 16 right now. Of course, I would have been in great despair if my size 18 Target jeans were sized correctly -- they probably should have been a 24 at least.

So what do you think? Have you seen this, too?

There are several threads about exactly this - and I agree it's a huge problem with making us think we aren't getting "that big".

When I was 18 in 1988 I wore a size 16 and I weighed 179 (unfit) pounds.

Skip forward and I gain a ton of weight.

When I was 30 in 1999 I lost a lot of weight, was getting fit - I wore a size 14 at 185 lbs. First bit of vanity sizing had happened.

Then I gain up to 275 - I wear a tight 20.

Now I'm 42 in 2012, lost a lot of weight - I wear between an 8-10 at 169 lbs.

When I get to goal I will probably wear an 8 pretty solidly in jeans - 10s/12s in dresses depending on the cut of the bust. (I have a large rib cage and big boobs).

HOWEVER, I have a size 16 LLBean skirt that fits me perfectly now - from 1994. I now wear a 10 in LLBean skirt. Vanity sizing is real.

I weighed about the same (up and down the same 20-40 pounds for nearly a decade). I wore a size 20. When I got to my highest, since I could still wear a 20, I didn't think much of it - not realizing that between the times I bought pants they had supersized the pants and my 20 was probably what used to be a 24 or 26!

I am a large built woman - every frame indicator things says so. That "I" at 169 pounds - still a bit chubby (and only a bit) can wear a size 8/10 is cracy ridiculous. WIth my large frame, I should always been on the verge of the plus size clothes - but yet I have to buy medium size underwear. Medium tops... that is craziness.

I agree, vanity sizing is definitely getting out of control. Is this some sort of strategy they hope will boost sales? Because honestly it makes me feel uncomfortable and also, it makes it really hard to shop online because I'm not sure what size is going to fit me properly. Have people gotten so large these past years that they have to modify sizes? Because I don't see shoes sizes getting altered in any way. They should rethink this whole vanity sizing because it's not helping anyone, especially not women who get the illusion of a healthy weight.

Yes. I did it once in high school -- comparing a pair of jeans I had vs a pear I inheritted from my mother and the vanity sizing was clear then. And this was the early 1990's! I can only imagine the disparity today in a comparison.

In the end though, there's no fashion police checking my tags. I just want to wear whatever flatters at the place I am at.

A.

Trying ro make sense of sizing is an exercise in futility. I just don't worry about it, I take at least two sizes into the dressing room, I also carry a tape measure with me. I buy what fits and don't care what the number says.

I'm in my 20s and I've seen it. I had clothes from middle school where I wore a 11/13, or a size 14 in women's and those clothes didn't fit me until I hit a size 10, or 8 in some cases.

I am old enough to remember when finding a size 12 in a mainstream store like The Limited (THAT should date me!) was like finding gold. I was about 140 pounds and had to SQUEEZE to get into a 12.

Vanity sizing exists. There are more big people and people in general are bigger. Communities aren't built to be walkable, people work long hours, kids are over scheduled, and most of our food isn't real. These are all big problems.

Changing numbers on clothes are an INDICATOR of big problems but they are not the CAUSE. What are the alternatives? No clothes for fat people? Bigger numbers so fat people can fell the full force of the shame of their "real" size? Keeping the "thin" numbers just for the real thin people who have eared them?

Of course there should be clothes for fat people, but it's not like there still aren't super skinny people out there. There are now 00 clothes because the size 2 is what used to be a 6. They should just make the numbers go higher - 24,26, 30, 32 or Gosh, maybe go by waist measurement like men's pants - waist and hip and length?

Some companies are going that route - thank goodness. Calvin Klein will now say 30-10 for 30" waist. Some go by waist size on 27, 28, 29. And that makes soooooo much more sense than making a 16 into a 10 and then making a 6 into a double 0.

It may not be the cause, but I think it is a contributing factor.

Thank you for all of your insights on this! I homeschooled for years and could not easily try on clothes, so I just picked up clothes. We should know our size and our weight, and denial is a coping mechanism. I think I may start an online petition about this. I am off to find the other threads.

Really..........I may have to try some jeans on at Target.

It doesn't bother me so much, but I get annoyed that the XS yoga pants there fall off of me, but they don't have an XXS and I'm definitely not an overly thin woman.
When I was in college and got really fit I had to wear children's clothes!

I had to return size 14 jeans at Coldwater Creek because they were huge. I wear a size 12 at Coldwater Creek Now look at my ticker. There is no way I should be able to wear a size 12 at my height and weight, and I never wore a size 12 even when I was 24 lbs lighter than I am now.

I'm really a 16 (or what used to be a 16).

Oh well, at least there are clothes out there that I can wear, and look good on me - and for that I am happy.

When I was in high school and was about 105lbs, I had a size 4 skirt that fit perfectly. I also had a vintage size 10 or 12 dress that fit perfectly back then.

After losing weight post dd2, I weighed 125-130 and again wore size 4. Definitely nothing like the same size 4. That was only 5-6 years ago. Has vanity sizing gotten worse since then? I guess I'll find out in another 20lbs.

Years ago I was thin. I am 5'7" tall.
I weighed 125 pounds and wore a size 10.
I was 36...24...38
Size 12 was too large.

Now it's plastered all over these forums that people my height and weighing 185 pounds are wearing size 12. At 165-175 pounds they are wearing a size 10?

Women are getting sooo very excited to be wearing size 10 when in reality the label should say size 16/18.


I think it would be much better if we all went by actual waist/bust/hip measurements instead of unreal clothing sizes in these forums.

When someone gets so very excited about fitting into a size 2...what are their measurements? (They probably are a size 10.)


The bust/waist/hip measurements would be a much truer guage of our size.

When you go just by crazy clothing sizes, you are fooling yourself into thinking you are slimmer than you really are. This can really throw you off your dieting.

We need to talk measurements more than clothing sizes to get a truer picture of what we really look like to others.

Taking a size 18 label and replacing it with a size 12 label does not make us thin. That unrealistic label is not a reason to think we are now the size of a runway model. Yet I constantly see people ecstatic that they are wearing a size 12...when in reality they are a size 18.

Marla, I really agree with you. I have been too lazy to hunt for my tape measure, but I keep it by my scale. My initial hip measurement when I started January 3 was 47 inches, and a week ago it was 41 inches. I started this journey wearing Target jeans size 18, which I now think is probably a real 24 or 26.

Here is a chart with standard sizes -- I would have been a 24 to start and now would be a 16 or 18:

http://www.dresssizes.org/uk.htm

For a size 12, my hips would have to be a full ten inches slimmer. Coincidentally, that was exactly the amount on the ruler that I measured when my old Gap jeans would not close.