Live data from Hacker News

Sizing chaos

pudding.cool

191–200 of 458 posts

Re: Sizing chaos

#191
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…

Yeah, I didn't want to be nasty about it, but the article saying that 37" is the median adult American woman's waist measurement is... pretty shocking. Like, I'm a 6' slightly out of shape dude and my waist fluctuates from 33-35". You'd have to be pretty large to have a feminine figure and have the narrow part be 2" wider than my widest section.

Have you measured your waist? Vanity sizing is a thing in men’s clothes too.

Re: Sizing chaos

#192
post #182
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.

Most adults in the US become physically inactive after they leave school/collage and move to an area where they have to drive everywhere, while sitting in an office the rest of the day.

While I'm well aware weight gain requires over consumption, I feel there is an under appreciated importance on being somewhat mobile rather than sitting/laying down for 23 hours a day

Re: Sizing chaos

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh? I mean, this sounds potentially interesting but I don’t understand it!

“We fixed the glitch.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12742762/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003193842... https://time.com/7340807/history-debate-insurance-glp-1s/ https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/the-growing-scientific-cas... The consistency that I'm hearing from all across patient groups is gain of control, whereas previously, there was a loss of control… All of a sudden they're abl…

[deleted]

Re: Sizing chaos

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite the article highlighting only people of width as the "millions of people who are excluded from standard size ranges", sizing is also a problem in the other direction: it's practically impossible to find well-fitting clothes if you're tall and in decent shape. To your point, though, perhaps there was a time when "large" and "x-large" meant "slightly tall" and "quite tall" rather than "slightly tall plus obese"…

As a dude who is 6’ 1” or thereabouts with a 32” or thereabouts waist and a 34” (or thereabouts) inseam: can confirm. Carhartts size up a waist size to account for shrinking, and I can almost reliably find a 34/34. Finding 32/34 in other pants is a challenge. On the subject of vanity sizing, I’m 15 pounds heavier than I was 20 years ago, and I still wear a 32/34. Which is why all those measurements are qualified abov…

As a dude who is 6'7" with a 35" waist (34" in brands that do vanity sizing) and an inseam that can handle a 34" even if it's not quite long enough, I agree that it's tough. One of the more annoying problems is that the MT shirt size doesn't seem to exist where I shop and LT flares outwards at the bottom. At least it's pretty easy to get a shirt taken in.

Re: Sizing chaos

#195
post #92

This is a great use of data to make a compelling case that sizing sucks for women's clothing! I do wish it attempted to answer the question at the end, though: "Sizes are all made up anyway — why can’t we make them better?" Like, why doesn't the market solve for this? If the median woman can't buy clothing that fits in many brands, surely that's a huge marketing opportunity for any of the thousands of other clothing…

> Like, why doesn't the market solve for this? If the median woman can't buy clothing that fits in many brands, surely that's a huge marketing opportunity for any of the thousands of other clothing brands? Because - in reality it's not much of a problem. Billions of women manage to buy and wear clothes just fine. Some might fit slightly better or worse, but unless you have very special body shape (and even extreme th…

Its only a problem for online shopping. In store you can simply grab multiple sizes and see which one fits best. Many online stores try to give multiple measurements of the clothes but even then it's extremely difficult to predict how it will look on you.

Online shoppers seem to solve this issue by just buying multiple items and returning the ones that don't fit. After which the retailer throws these returns in the bin.

Re: Sizing chaos

#196
post #20
post #16

Women's sizing is so dumb. They could just provide inches or cm like they do for the men, but for some reason (well for marketing reasons, as discussed extensively in the article), they use these random sizes and numbers that aren't consistent and change over time. I think this is why stretchy materials are getting more and more popular. The women in my house use stretchy pants almost exclusively, because they are mu…

>Women's sizing is so dumb. They could just provide inches or cm like they do for the men, but for some reason (well for marketing reasons, as discussed extensively in the article), they use these random sizes and numbers that aren't consistent and change over time. Relevant: TIL that while male rowers are classified as "lightweight" or "heavyweight", larger female rowers are called "openweight" instead of "heavyweig…

Lightweight rowing is pretty much dead, anyways.

It was originally introduced to give countries with shorter people a chance to compete (as rowing depends a lot on height), but in practice it mainly resulted in promising candidates who didn't quite make the cut for heavyweight being forced into eating disorders.

Lightweight rowing has been cut from the olympics already, so to a lot of organisations it has lost its relevance. There are still world championships, but I bet it is only a matter of time before it'll disappear there as well.

Re: Sizing chaos

#197

I might have missed this in the scroll format but is there any reason not to drop the qualitative size names and just use an actual dimension or two?

Yeah it's weird that mens pants and womens bras have numerical sizing but other womens clothing doesn't.

Re: Sizing chaos

#198
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if understanding a particular brand's sizing drives up repeat purchases.

Yes but it’s multiple dimensions other than just waistline. e.g Some brands make boxier shirts and others use longer cuts. Because “my style” prefers one over the other, I know when I buy from a certain brand so it’s going to fit on me better. If if waistlines were standardized it wouldn’t really account for all the other measurements.

There's also different definitions of waistline size. Pant sizes "lie" because historically most pants sat further up your waist, now that many of them sit on your hips, they give you a measurement as if they were still sitting higher up so you can compare between the fits with the same number.

Really the only bulletproof solution here is to just go try them on in store and see which fits best.

Re: Sizing chaos

#199
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

To be clear, you’re advocating for women to lose the right to vote? The misogyny in this thread was disappointing already, but seeing this comment being voted up is maybe a sign I should not be on this website any more.

Voted up?

If you mean the troll post didn't immediately fade with one downvote that might just be a matter of having two accounts.

Re: Sizing chaos

#200
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…

Yeah, I didn't want to be nasty about it, but the article saying that 37" is the median adult American woman's waist measurement is... pretty shocking. Like, I'm a 6' slightly out of shape dude and my waist fluctuates from 33-35". You'd have to be pretty large to have a feminine figure and have the narrow part be 2" wider than my widest section.

No you're not. That's the size your brands of choice advertise to you so you think that you're slimmer than you are.
Post reply on HN