One Size Fits All

[rolanni]

As advertised elsewhere, yesterday we journeyed to the great city of Augusta and there committed Shopping. While I didn't buy any clothes myself yesterday, I tried on jeans -- between size 12 and 14, depending on the cut -- and found myself in the dressing room next door to one where a maybe-15-year-old girl and her mom were undertaking the exercise in futility of trying to see the child appropriately clothed according to two sets of vastly different criteria.

"Those are too tight," I hear mom say. "What size are they?"

"Three," the kid answers shortly.

"Well, I'll go out and get you a size five," mom says, whereupon the kid immediately hits orbit.

"Five!" she wails. "Moooom! I don't wear a five! Five! My God! Bring me a four. A four will be fine."

"They don't have fours here, honey," mom says with more patience than I was feeling, and I was only an eavesdropper.

"They have to have fours," the kid insists. "They have fours at the Gap."

"The Gap..." mom starts, then lets it go and just repeats, "I'll go get you a five, sweetie. Back in a minute." Whereupon she beats a retreat, and the kid is left to fume audibly about size five and her mother thought she was fat and she did too wear a four and this wouldn't have happened if only they had gone to the Gap.

Shaking my head, I decided that I wasn't going to pay thirty dollars for acid-washed jeans with short pockets and left the scene before mom got back with the fat-girl clothes.

Fast-forward to this morning and the gym. Someone has gotten the bright idea of putting up testimonials from women who have lost a lot of weight, as an inspiration to the rest of us. I usually don't read them, but today there was one right in front of my nose as I was doing my stretches, and I read it before I remembered not to.

Seems the lady testifying had lost sixty pounds since late 2002. Her testimony starts off with, "When my husband bought me a pair of size 14 pants, I knew I had to do something." She goes on to reveal that she had weighed 153 pounds and provides a picture to prove it, along with a second picture of her new, thin self. The testimony doesn't mention how tall she is -- I'm guessing it must be in the five-three range.

Now, this lady had accomplished something that's very difficult to do and she's justly proud of herself. I don't at all want to denigrate her victory, here. But I do feel, just a bit, worried. The message of the testimony appears to be that a weight of 153 pounds is wrong of itself.

Sorta like those size 5 jeans.

Comments

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

>The message of the testimony appears to be that a weight of 153 pounds >is wrong of itself.

Yeah.

Poundage seems a charged issue, because I get this sense that any woman who weighs more than 130 pounds is considered to be some kind of gorilla. I recall reading a Richard Roeper (the new Gene Siskel) column years ago in which he discussed an idealized nightclub where all the women wore short black skirts and none of them weighed more than 120 pounds.

I guess Richard and I won't be dating anytime soon.

That stuck with me the way most things weight-related stick with me. I know about what I weigh but I don't weigh myself regularly. I know that even if I attained my ideal state of fitness, I would still weigh more than is socially acceptable.

Actually, ALLURE magazine is running year-long makeover articles, following two women through 12 months of diet and exercise readjustment. They did this last year as well--one of the women they tracked stood about 5-5, and weighed between 155-160 at the start. She didn't seem that overweight--a diet and fitness regimen reduced her percent body fat by quite a bit, but the increased muscle mass meant that her weight only dropped by 10 pounds or so. I thought it was a good series because it showed that realistic-looking women weigh more than supermodels and still look good. Weight is a number and how one carries it is determined by many things.

True beauty, as defined today, is light and airy and doesn't take up much space, and our imposed ideals are size 0. I'll never forget the issue of W in which I read the comment by one fashion maven that Christy Turlington appeared "pleasingly plump" in one ad. That was the point at which the magazine switched from Fashion to Fantasy for me. Another society female who is over 6 feet tall and a size 14 mentioned in an interview that when she asks for that size in designer shops, the clerks stare in horror. No one who looks like she does is supposed to wear that size, apparently.

Large-boned women--the Final Frontier

[windrose.livejournal.com]

I'm 5'3" with my boots on, and weigh close to 130lbs. Most of that is muscle weight from ice skating. I also have the hockey player's curse of a big butt and thighs because all of your power comes from your quads. Makes finding pants and skirts that fit very interesting. Apparently to the fashion industry, if you're 5'3", you're supposed to be a size two and have no hips, not a size eight tomboy with the ass to prove it. :-P

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

I'm a smitch over 5'3". At my thinnest, at 110 pounds, I was a size 10 edging into a size 12.

I have shoulders. And a bust. But no hips. There was no way on this earth, past age 12, that I ever got into a size 8.

You do realize of course that Hollywood actresses are not human. They are grown in vats, and are made of extruded plastic.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I am appalled at fashion that seems designed to make women look like men. No hips. Flat stomach. Either small breasts or breasts obviously augmented because few women of that weight would ever develop them naturally.

To be healthy is a good thing, whatever that means for your size... but for heaven's sake, women are supposed to be curvy and when you hug them they're supposed to be soft and cushiony, not bony and hard. :P

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I've realized over the years that obsessing about their appearance is kind of hardwired into many girls--and reviling against it is just to give them yet more mixed signals.

So I don't. But I do let my sixth graders know, when the subject comes up, that boys never ask what size dress or jeans a girl wears--only other girls do, and only in competition. I point out that boys like girls with real figures, not all bony and stick-like.

This subject is so exhausting....

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

The weight vs. clothing thing drives me nuts. If no women in America weigh over a size 6 or under a size 16, then why are there no 8-14 on the rack when I go shopping? That girl is headed downhill for anorexia.

The LBb condition induces bloating from the slightest amount of carbohydrates. I'm afraid to give them up completely for very good reasons, but since wheat causes a 4 dress size increase over 24 hours, carbs and I are not friends.

But this is waist, thigh, stomach and hip bloating--my wrists are still bony, my clavicles stick out, and I can count the ribs above my breasts. Just to confuse things, I am the natural version of all those augmented actresses--a natural $25,000 boob job. People fail to mention that fibrocystic syndrome is painful, especially if you get too much caffeine.... Add in broad shoulders and hips, smaller waist--sheesh....

Right now I spend a lot of time in sweat pants and over-sized teeshirts, comfortable and I can do massage in them. But I literally keep clothing in several sizes, so I have at least one dress from a 10-16 in an emergency.

When I found out they airbrush Cindy Crawford's arms for magazine covers so there's no hint of softness (even though she does do upper body workouts) I knew reality was gone from fashion.