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Sizing chaos

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Re: Sizing chaos

#181

Post by crote »

altairprime wrote: post #81
choilive wrote: post #66

If we can have mass produced fast fashion from runway to store in weeks... Why not tailored clothing at scale? Have a set of portable body measurements that can be sent to any retailer - make an order and have it sent from factory to door in a week or two. Or get a size that is close enough - bring it to your neighborhood tailor. Most alterations are simple and not very expensive. Unfortunately sizing is just a leaky…

If sizes were updated to, say, 14Z, where Z is a common industry-wide body shape code, then it would be vastly simpler to find clothing that fits — and people who were a 22 before might now be a 16S, once the clothes are proportioned properly for their non-hourglass body. The problem underlying this is that retailers do not want to advertise for more than one body shape, because that not only reduces their total prof…

> have to start selling clothing “made to order” with only a limited quantity kept in the store for try-on purposes.

This is already pretty much the case. The larger retailers have been very happy to push all "tricky" sizes to the internet, and just stock a larger variety of items in a size or three in the store instead. They'd rather stock 15 items in 3 sizes each than 5 items in 9 sizes each.

If you're not the same size as the median high-volume in-person shopaholic, physical stores these days are closer to a catalog to browse through combined with a post office for pickup.

Combine that with today's fast fashion, and I wouldn't be surprised if some sizes are only being manufactured in the dozens or low-hundreds quantities!

Re: Sizing chaos

#182

Post by tirant »

diath wrote: post #89

The issue is not the sizes, the issue is the obesity epidemic. According to CDC [1] the average woman in the US is 5'3" weighing 172lbs. That's not just overweight but rather first degree of obesity. I guess you could argue that sizes should catch up to the demands when half of your population is straight up fat but I feel like a better angle would be educating people that 1500 kcal worth of Starbucks sugar for break…

I am really surprised about the sharp increase in body size by age in the USA.

I have just anecdotal experience here in Europe, but I know for a fact that all the females in my family have kept the same size since they were 16-18 years old. That’s also my experience with the male side of the family.

Re: Sizing chaos

#183

Post by slopinthebag »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #177
diath wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing that GLP-1 agonists prove is that CICO does indeed work - if you force yourself into a caloric deficit through the inhibition of hunger hormones using drugs that you will lose weight. It has nothing to do with people choosing to eat highly processed unhealthy foods over healthier options. When you're on Ozempic or peptides like Retatrutide/Tirzepatide you don't think "I will not eat a bag of chips toda…

> The only thing that GLP-1 agonists prove is that CICO does indeed work This is incorrect, as demonstrated over and over again. For many people's bodies, consuming less will result in the body changing its metabolism to burn less, and not dipping into fat stores. Conversely, for many people's bodies, exercising more does not in fact change their metabolism and the amount of energy they burn. (There are studies that…

That there is variance in energy expenditure both within a population and within a person over time doesn't mean that a caloric deficit doesn't work. It just means that using a single scalar value (which is usually a gross estimate) to drive your caloric intake is a poor approach.

The body has means to regulate it's energy expenditure to maintain homeostasis, and in some people it can be a hundreds of kcal difference. But if you're trying to lose body fat on a 10% estimated deficit and fail, the conclusion shouldn't be that a 20% deficit will also fail.

Re: Sizing chaos

#184

Post by lxgr »

kccqzy wrote: post #99
munificent wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like a better angle would be educating people that 1500 kcal worth of Starbucks sugar for breakfast is not healthy. An even better angle is educating Starbucks to stop selling unhealthy garbage. The idea that all blame rests on individuals and corporations are blame-free is crazy. They have way more agency over what we consume than individuals do.

That Starbucks probably saved my life after I made an unwise decision to bike 40 miles on an empty stomach. Bonking is real, and I’m glad they are allowed to sell the sugary beverages to prevent me from bonking. Oh and I also fainted the first time I donated blood, because I did not know I should not donate blood while fasting. Again, sugary drinks helped.

By that logic, should Starbucks also sell life-saving insulin and epi pens?

Re: Sizing chaos

#185

Post by JoshTriplett »

slopinthebag wrote: post #183
JoshTriplett wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only thing that GLP-1 agonists prove is that CICO does indeed work This is incorrect, as demonstrated over and over again. For many people's bodies, consuming less will result in the body changing its metabolism to burn less, and not dipping into fat stores. Conversely, for many people's bodies, exercising more does not in fact change their metabolism and the amount of energy they burn. (There are studies that…

That there is variance in energy expenditure both within a population and within a person over time doesn't mean that a caloric deficit doesn't work. It just means that using a single scalar value (which is usually a gross estimate) to drive your caloric intake is a poor approach. The body has means to regulate it's energy expenditure to maintain homeostasis, and in some people it can be a hundreds of kcal difference…

For some people, a 50% "deficit" fails. And the entire concept of "X workout burns Y calories" is completely bunk. Again, there have been multiple studies to this effect.

Re: Sizing chaos

#186

Post by slopinthebag »

harrall wrote: post #173

Women have it much worse but it’s the same with men’s clothes. A “large” men’s shirt from Uniqlo is totally different from a “large” from Volcom and so on. Start making your own clothes and realize there’a a thousand dimensions to a shirt and “waistline” is barely scratching the surface. Don’t get me started on shoes, especially if you have wide feet. Something like “wide” means totally different things. Unlike cloth…

and then you buy two different brands of pants of the same w/l and they fit completely differently /)_-)

Re: Sizing chaos

#187

Post by raincole »

munificent wrote: post #97
diath wrote: post #89

The issue is not the sizes, the issue is the obesity epidemic. According to CDC [1] the average woman in the US is 5'3" weighing 172lbs. That's not just overweight but rather first degree of obesity. I guess you could argue that sizes should catch up to the demands when half of your population is straight up fat but I feel like a better angle would be educating people that 1500 kcal worth of Starbucks sugar for break…

> I feel like a better angle would be educating people that 1500 kcal worth of Starbucks sugar for breakfast is not healthy. An even better angle is educating Starbucks to stop selling unhealthy garbage. The idea that all blame rests on individuals and corporations are blame-free is crazy. They have way more agency over what we consume than individuals do.

You know multinational brands sell sweeter products in the US than in other countries?

It's not that all the rest of the world has sugar tax or something. It's customer profile.

[0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32576300/ [1]: https://www.itiger.com/news/1184332557

Re: Sizing chaos

#188

Post by cyberrock »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #3

Makes me want to learn to sew to make my own clothes. I've wanted to for a while because seams on clothes always bothered me. (Not for taste or fashion, but just because I feel like the technology to make a seamless clothing product must exist.)

For t-shirts you're looking for loopwheel or tubular knit.

Re: Sizing chaos

#189

Post by vpribish »

altairprime wrote: post #146
8organicbits wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll point out a statistical hazard here. While CDC lists the average height and weight at 5'3" and 172 lbs, the medians appear to be 5'3" and 161 lbs. That's a BMI of 28 and is considered overweight (25-30), not obese. Although I'll mention BMI is a pretty rough measure to begin with.

To provide context for those still using BMI as the sole 'fat or not' discriminator — the CDC published an n=9894 longitudinal study* about ten years ago; generally summarizing figure 1, the median starts around 0.53 +/- gender variance at 20-29, peaks at 0.62 +/- at 70-79, and then begins decreasing from there; however, they found that BMI fails to represent the 'fat' levels improperly (to our detriment) for people…

“BMI fails to represent the 'fat' levels improperly” - what is that supposed to say. I’m just done trying to understand things that the writer didn’t even read.

Re: Sizing chaos

#190

Post by crote »

moralestapia wrote: post #176

Is this not the case with men?

To an extent, yes.

However, men's clothing is generally rather shapeless, whereas women's clothing is usually quite figure-fitting.

Women also have a lot more variety in body shape: breasts are a thing, for starters, and there's a wide variety in which areas fat is primarily stored.

Is sizing an issue for men as well? Yeah, probably. But it is significantly worse for women.

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