The Change Mariner

The "Super Sizing" of America

New York Times:

For the first time since World War II, a national survey has sized up the average American body, not just by weight and height or even the standard chest-waist-hip routine, but in more than 240 measurements tip to toe.

The results confirm what other statistics have shown: that Americans have grown. In their sheer detail, the measurements also show just how and where -- an intimate portrait of the national body with all its Lycra-ed love handles, sucked-in stomachs and fashionably disguised spare tires.

The survey -- called SizeUSA and sponsored by clothing and textile companies, the Army, Navy and several universities -- measured more than 10,000 people in 13 cities nationwide using a light-pulsing 3-D scanner.

...

Over all, the new measurements shake up what have long been considered the average outlines of the American body. For years, an average woman was thought to be a size 8, although some circles had bumped that up to size 12 in recent years. But even the women who came in on the small side in the SizeUSA survey look more like what the longtime clothing industry standards would consider a size 14 -- the size at which "plus size" clothing begins.

Posted by Timothy Fredel at March 1, 2004 02:36 PM | TrackBack
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