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Are our casual clothes making us fat??
ilfaith
Posts: 16,769 Member
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.
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.
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Replies
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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.0 -
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.2 -
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.
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To each their own...I think comfort just seems to be taking precedence over form fitting/trendy stuff. Function > Form...I personally can not fathom wearing anything labeled/designed as skinny fit for bottoms because these styles are not designed to fit everyone (literally would not be able to bend down). Muscle + being fit and tailoring clothing to fit such physiques is quite an uphill challenge especially when looking for dress wear (additives like lyrca & spandex make things manageable for people who lift weights religiously yet need to wear formal wear for work).
Do not have a desk job (standing 12+ hours a day) so wearing more comfortable fits (usually try to find "athletic" fit for tops - more shoulder room still trim/tapered waist, non-slim fit for bottoms) is a must.11 -
There's always something "making us fat." Personally, I think overeating and sitting on our butts is the real culprit. I've been wearing "athleisure" for years because it's comfortable, and I haven't gotten fat from it. LOL.
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If we're going to blame our clothes for making us fat, there's no hope for the human race.31
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Wait. I thought we were blaming Big Sugar?16
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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.18
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I'm old enough to remember when everything had to be ironed.
Those were not 'the good old days'.32 -
I eat too much and put on weight whether dressed or naked...and I want to look better naked so I eat less and move more. Screw clothes, who needs em.
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Arrrgh, @LAT1963, I’m old enough that I still iron my clothes.
There was a point in time where I wore a lot of yoga pants (never actually exercised), leggings and either stretchy tops or loose fitting tunics.
I also put on 30lbs during that time.
The loose/ stretchy clothes weren’t the cause of my weight gain, just hid it from me.* Buying a car, therefore moving less, without adjusting my intake, was.
*(Up until the 30lbs weight gain, I had never paid much attention to my weight only weighing myself if a friend had a scale in the bathroom, or something similar, and rarely looked in a full length mirror)
If I had worn more fitted dresses like I do now, I would have probably caught the gain 20lbs earlier.
My casual clothes aren’t edible so they can’t make me fat.
Cheers, h.12 -
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 Netflix1
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That article is completely insane (also known as par for the course for the daily mail). I can't really believe that people seem to think we need to shame obese people by making clothing uncomfortable for them. There seems to be a whole line of thinking that "if we make life miserable enough for obese people, they'll become skinny!" But really all that does is make obese people more miserable.
Let people wear stretchy clothes if they want to wear stretchy clothes. There are more important things to focus on, like literally anything else.
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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".12 -
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.1 -
No. I was alive and adult before the current so-called obesity crisis started in the 1980s (as it's usually accounted).
If you figure out how many extra calories it takes to create the weight creep in the average weight from then to now, it's only a few hundred over maintenance.
We just move that much less, and eat that much more.
* Jobs are more automated and sedentary on average.
* There are more ready-to-eat foods available, in more places, during more hours of the day; and you can pick them up at a drive-up or have them delivered.
* More household chores have been automated or power-assisted.
* Tableware (plates, bowls, glasses, cups) are larger, on average.
* Restaurant servings are larger, on average. More things are deep-fried and cheesy and whatnot.
* Soda/pop bottles and cans come in larger sizes, as do fountain drinks.
* More hobbies involve virtual activity (gaming, internet), or watching other people do activity (TV); fewer hobbies involve physically doing stuff.
* Social norms around eating and drinking have changed: It's now normal to carry a Big Gulp or Starbucks almost anywhere, anytime. (Cars didn't have cupholders when I was a kid, because people weren't constantly eating/drinking in cars.)
* . . . and I could go on and on.
I'm not saying that everyone does all these "move less, eat more" things all the time. But enough people do enough of them often enough to account for the obesity crisis.
Clothes are stretchy because (1) the manufacturing processes for knit fabrics have improved dramatically over recent decades; (2) knitted clothing is cheaper to make (doesn't need certain technical sewing bits to make it fit people, because the stretch handles that); (3) people like comfort; and (4) almost everything has become more casual, not just clothing.19 -
I think you're putting the cart before the horse. Eating too many calories made people fat, not clothing.1
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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).6
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My pants don't hurt, so I'll eat the whole pie? Just not seeing it.7
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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.
I admit I was being somewhat facetious in my original post.
And I do know that the Daily Mail is not exactly the the world's most trusted news source.
But I have known friends to complain that they gained weight when they started wearing scrubs to work...or began working from home and didn't have to put on a suit each day. But their gains could perhaps more easily be explained by the abundant supply of snacks at the nurses' station, or the fact that they were working mere steps from their own kitchen.7 -
No, unless you eat them.8
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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.
I admit I was being somewhat facetious in my original post.
And I do know that the Daily Mail is not exactly the the world's most trusted news source.
But I have known friends to complain that they gained weight when they started wearing scrubs to work...or began working from home and didn't have to put on a suit each day. But their gains could perhaps more easily be explained by the abundant supply of snacks at the nurses' station, or the fact that they were working mere steps from their own kitchen.
I've worked from home for a decade, now. Yes, the kitchen is a few scant steps from my office. On days when I don't have to go out, I will even work in my pjs and slippers all day. Sooooo comfy!
When I had my mom living here, I found that my weight was creeping up in direct proportion to her decline in health, which slowly escalated the amount of hands-on care she required each day. Trips to the grocery store became more difficult, because she couldn't be left alone for even a second. That combined with my increasing lack of time and energy often made ordering in dinner the best option. As a result, though, I started to pack on the weight. Was I unaware of it because my pjs have an elastic waistband? No. I was aware of it because performing physical tasks - especially those related to my mom - became increasingly difficult, and climbing the stairs to her room countless times per day was leaving me more breathless as time progressed.
I could no longer go for my beloved daily walks unless someone else was at home to watch her. So I bought a treadmill and used that instead. We still ordered in dinner quite often, but I started making healthier choices there, too. I bought a food scale so I finally had a handle on the amount of calories I was consuming each day.
Long story short? I lost the 75 lbs I needed to while still working from home and taking care of my mom until the day she passed.
The point is that most people who are gaining weight *know* they're gaining weight. The elastic in their pants isn't to blame for them not realizing it. The culprit (if there is one) will most times lie squarely with them just not being ready to deal with it.18 -
RelCanonical wrote: »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!
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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???
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cbstewart88 wrote: »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???
Still wear it! I love dressing up to go to the grocery store, lol. As I've become more comfortable with my body, it's been far easier to just wear what I want, and I'm like you - I love dressing up, albeit with cheaper shoes because I ain't made of money, lol. I guess it depends on the region, but people here have had nothing but good things to say. Some people at my job wear gym shorts to work, we're so casual (digital marketing), but I always dress up because it makes ME feel good.7 -
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
).
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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). 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.
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I'm only going to relay my personal experience....
I wear tailored clothes for work, so it was very noticable to me when I started to gain weight. And, I was extremely annoyed when I had to buy new clothes in bigger sizes and could not fit into my old favorites. It was a drag on my budget and my self-confidence, so it was a big part of my motivation and commitment to losing the weight I had gained.
They are not the reason people gain weight, but maybe for some people, stretchy, casual clothes allow you to live in denial for a little longer.16 -
RelCanonical wrote: »cbstewart88 wrote: »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???
Still wear it! I love dressing up to go to the grocery store, lol. As I've become more comfortable with my body, it's been far easier to just wear what I want, and I'm like you - I love dressing up, albeit with cheaper shoes because I ain't made of money, lol. I guess it depends on the region, but people here have had nothing but good things to say. Some people at my job wear gym shorts to work, we're so casual (digital marketing), but I always dress up because it makes ME feel good.
You are absolutely right!! Screw it. I'm dressing up to go grocery shopping.
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