Welcome to Debate Club! Please be aware that this is a space for respectful debate, and that your ideas will be challenged here. Please remember to critique the argument, not the author.

Are our casual clothes making us fat??

ilfaith
ilfaith Posts: 16,769 Member
edited December 22 in Debate Club
Had an ad pop up in my Facebook feed for yoga pants that look like dress pants. Showed a woman sitting in a chair with the waistband of her trousers digging into her belly. Alongside was a woman, in her stretchy dress pants with the elastic waist, comfortably rubbing her tummy. The model was relatively slim, but I thought isn't this why Americans have gotten fat over the past few decades. Clothes that are comfy and stretchy instead of tailored and constricting.

Has the popularity of athleisure fueled the obesity epidemic? Back in the day...and I'm not just thinking back to the Mad Men era of slim fitting suits and sharp fitted dresses...but even when I entered the work force in the 90s, people dressed up more for work. But then casual Fridays became business casual every day, Dockers and leggings became commonplace, and it even became difficult to find denim that didn't contain a little lycra for stretch.

So maybe we didn't notice when we put on a few pounds, as our clothing expanded along with our waistlines. And vanity sizing miraculously kept us in the same sizes we wore 8n college. And thanks to inexpensive "fast fashion" if an item became too tight (must have shrunk in the wash) it was cheap enough to replace with something new.

Obviously, I wouldn't dream of bringing back corsets and whalebone stays. But I wonder if a return to wearing more structured clothes would make people stop and think hmm...these are feeling a little snug. Perhaps I should get a salad or skip the pudding.
«134

Replies

  • JRsLateInLifeMom
    JRsLateInLifeMom Posts: 2,275 Member
    edited August 2019
    Nah always been the Woman who didn’t shed the baby weight or guy who’s larger. Those people made their own,had a seamstress or tailor, paid a young gal to housewife to sew a few things,or dieted.There has always been methods to lose weight but was available to the richer classes. In history there was also places for the elites to send Daughters or sons to lose weight before finding a spouse/introducing to adult society. Some hid since different eras shamed obesity then another era shamed skinnies.
    Here’s a fun article about it. Cough cough President Taft got stuck in his automobile y Babe Ruth was a giant of a man.
  • JRsLateInLifeMom
    JRsLateInLifeMom Posts: 2,275 Member
    Lol even 6th century they had fad diets here’s an article about it.Folks had their young boys in diets for Olympic to wanting them to be higher up in the army.
    175BC was a piss drinking y cabbage fad diets.
    Tape worms to arsenic been used. Of course in ancient Egypt women used crocodile 🐊 dung as contraception so have we ever been bright? Cigarette 🚬 to shaking belly belts buzzzzzzzzzzzzz as you jiggle around. Now there’s fat sucking machines to suction cup devices to tone stomach muscles without exercise once again for the rich lol.
  • JRsLateInLifeMom
    JRsLateInLifeMom Posts: 2,275 Member
    Exercise equipment looked like death traps back in the day or just hilarious now but back then they were latest greatest for the upper classes. Folks bought pills,tonics,soaps like they do now hoping one will work.
    nd5mn6qf6qzt.jpego7soc7ko6z6j.jpeg
    fpbf6kwma48d.jpeg
    0m7v0efj3trl.jpeg

  • JRsLateInLifeMom
    JRsLateInLifeMom Posts: 2,275 Member
    Lol 😂 I chase a 2yr old got an adult Daughter have always worn comfort clothes wasn’t fat until my 4th pregnancy when my uterus exploded had to do bedrest for the whole pregnancy plus 6months after! Take out because I couldn’t cook. Yup hit peri menopause a 2nd time.Had baby post menopause so don’t toss them birth controls girls y guys! Age isn’t my friend or the fact I went from a running around job to sitting on a couch breastfeeding 🤱 eating chips y cookies watching Netflix
  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    ilfaith wrote: »

    Are you posting this to make fun of it, or to support the original post? The daily mail is like a cheesy tabloid, so it's hard to tell with no comment added.

    The obesity problem will continue to be a problem as long as we continue to look for reasons outside of our own responsibility. People are overweight because it is newly possible to live an entirely sedentary lifestyle while surrounded by cheap and plentiful calorie dense food. It doesn't matter if your pants have an elastic waistband or Nike has plus size mannequins or GMOs are labeled clearly or food has preservatives or how many carbs are in your burrito or which kinds of fats you eat.

    I personally have never been obese, but I feel confident obese people deal with uncomfortable and even painful situations and events far worse than "my pants aren't stretchy enough".

    Commenter is the OP so I am guessing it was posted in support.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    I think you're putting the cart before the horse. Eating too many calories made people fat, not clothing.
  • jenilla1
    jenilla1 Posts: 11,118 Member
    edited August 2019
    Or possibly that elastic and other stretchy materials are just cheaper and better quality nowadays (both in durability and in looks) so people just plain like them more, fat or not. Perhaps our priorities have changed from spending hours on caring for clothes to instead make and respond to threads trying to figure out why people are fat.

    OMG, Bwahahahahahahaha! >:)
  • cbstewart88
    cbstewart88 Posts: 453 Member
    This is slightly off-topic, but I was just thinking about the casual clothing boom the other day. When I started my own business way back when - my job consisted of going into other businesses to do my work. I ALWAYS dressed up. I loved it. I had a wardrobe of beautiful dresses and luscious heels and sharp handbags. Even as workplaces became more casual - I stuck to my guns and continued dressing up. I wanted to project a professional and competent image despite the often weird looks I would get - LOL.

    So now I am retired. And there my stuff hangs. I miss wearing those clothes. Sometimes I go out to dinner just for an excuse to get dressed up again. But even in fancier restaurants the dress code has really gotten more lenient and I feel overdressed and out of place. I guess my point is - anybody in the market for slightly worn Manolo heels, size 8??? ;)

  • eryn0x
    eryn0x Posts: 138 Member
    ilfaith wrote: »
    But I wonder if a return to wearing more structured clothes would make people stop and think hmm...these are feeling a little snug. Perhaps I should get a salad or skip the pudding.

    Firstly, I think (most?) of us know when our weight is creeping up regardless of whether our yoga pants still fit. Secondly, even fairly restricting clothes can stretch a bit until one day you have no choice but to buy a size up next time. I can't imagine too many people who keep squeezing into the same clothes year after year as the determining factor to their weight. I wish it were, I have plenty of clothes in a restricting size 6 to celebrate my big weight loss (now a size 12 :neutral: ).

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    aokoye wrote: »
    The "obesity epidemic" is too old for it to have been fueled by the current trend in some circles of wearing stretchy comfortable athletic clothing. I've been alive for the start of people wearing leggings more places than they used to and "yoga pants" (of the spandex kind) being a thing. I have not be alive for as long as the obesity epidemic has existed (it started in the late 70s/early 80s from what I can tell).

    :lol: Tell that to my super fat grandmother in the 50s. When she died I went through her recipe box and 90% of them were desserts - made with Crisco and butter.

    She wore loose dresses, though. Maybe there's something to this.

    Elastic is not my friend.

This discussion has been closed.