All over the media today is the fact that 1/3 of girls in grades 6-8 are dieting or concerned about their weight. Of course, the news media attribute* this to unrealistic body images portrayed in magazines and movies and celebrities etc. etc. However, it occurs to me that it might also be due in part to the saturation of media stories about how EVERYONE IN THE WORLD IS GETTING FATTER and it's a HEALTH EPIDEMIC and OBESITY IS THE NEW CANCER and whatnot. I could see some girls that age noticing a few extra pounds around their middle and figuring they'd better diet not so they can look like [insert whatever celebrity girls that age look up to], but so they can avoid being one of those obesity epidemic people.

Then we have articles like this one, which notes (based on questionable information) that 11 year old girls now have a larger waistline on average than grown women did in the 1940s, and spins it to mean OMG OUR KIDS ARE GETTING FAT!!!!!!

There are a few problems with that article, and with the conclusion they draw from it. The first problem is that height isn't taken into account. People now are taller than they were 60 years ago, particularly considering that the time period in question is war-torn Europe when rationing was in effect. They allege that the average woman in 1940s England was 33-21-33, but she was probably about 5'2" tall. (A cautious estimate based on the fact that, according to the all about puberty book I had as a kid, the average woman in 1990s England was 5'4"). Myself, I'm 5'7". A tad above average, but certainly nothing to write home about. Even if I were in perfect physical condition, even if I had the absolute minimum body fat required to function, I doubt I would be capable of being 33-21-33. For example, I have no fat on my ribs under my breasts, just skin and bones, and the circumference of my bra band is 31". If you add to that the minimum pecs needed to function normally, and the minimum mammary glands needed to be a fertile woman (even if I had no breasts to speak of), my chest would certainly be more than 33". So for a 21st century woman to be a few inches larger than 33-21-33 certainly does not mean that she's fat.

The second point that they seem to be neglecting in this article is that a significant number of 11-year-old girls have gone through their growth spurts, and almost all 13-year-old girls have, so they would be closer to the size of a grown woman than the size of a child. Using myself as an example again, I was 5'0" at the age of 10, and had reached my current height of 5'7" by the time I started high school at the age of 13. Again this is a bit taller than usual and a bit more of an early bloomer than usual, but when I was 11 years old I was probably about the same size as the average 1940s woman. The article spins it to give the impression that there are these oversized monster children stomping around, twice the size of their grandmothers. What it actually comes down to is that a group of people that includes a significant number of (physically) grown females now is slightly bigger than one ideal of a female figure 60 years ago. That is not a problem!

The third problem, which they don't even mention, is that women wore girdles in the 1940s, and the dress pattern from which they derive the 33-21-33 measurements would have taken this into account. Plug in whatever numbers you want, the 7:11 waist:hip ratio rarely if ever exists in nature. That would be 38.5-24.5-38.5 or 44-28-44. Also, when sewing a dress from a pattern, a seamstress with a moderate amount of skill can adjust it to accommodate different sizes or variations of shape such as wide hips and small chest. I'm sure it would be possible to make a dozen dresses from a single pattern all in different sizes, none of which are tailored to a 33-21-33 woman. Using a dress pattern to represent the actual sizes of actual women is simply bad science!

Perhaps the research in this article is moderately interesting, but it is more indicative of the fact that people are taller, puberty is earlier, and fashions are different than of an obesity crisis. It was irresponsible for them to have spun it that way. And they wonder why young girls are dieting!

(Edited to add: The article also mentions that skirt waist sizes have gone up. Male readers should be aware that skirt waist sizes don't always represent a woman's actual waist size, as they often have to be bought larger to accomodate the hips, or the normal expansion of the stomach through eating, sitting, and berathing. As a diaphragm-breather who spends the whole day sitting, I habitually by clothing with a number at least seven inches more than my actual waist circumference.)