So I am angry and disturbed to say the least...
I took my kids yesterday to buy them some summer clothes, my youngest is two years old and is in the 50th percentile on height and weight. Most of the clothes I have for her are hand me downs or purchased at a thrift store and in all of the she wears a size 2t. Every season I like to buy them a few new pieces that are all their own so yesterday I took them to do just that. I was looking for shorts in size 2t and when I found some they looked huge! I tried them on her and they literally fell off, had to go all the way down to a 12mo before they fit her waist! The shorts she came in were a 2t that fit her perfectly they were however a couple of years old. Pair after pair, brand after brand, same results. My analysis is that kids are getting fatter but no one wants to notice it so instead of saying wow these children are big and perhaps we should look at their eating habits to see why childhood obesity is such a problem, we simple ignore the problem and try to hide it by changing the number sizes of their clothes. "No my child is not fat, he does not have a weight problem he still wears a size 2t. Here honey have another big mac." I measured the waist of a pair of size 18mo pants and the waist would fit my 4 1/2 year old! How crazy is that!! I vote for allowing parents to see how big their children are getting then maybe when they see that their 18mo old child is wearing a size 4t, they will stop feeding them all of the processed food like product that made them so large in the first place! It is infuriating how people are just content to cover up this epidemic and pretend that it it does not exist! We are killing our children America!!! Wake up and do something about it! Stop hiding behind camouflage and band aids!!!!!!!
here is a link to an article I found on the subject, entitled Shops forced to make bigger children's clothes to cope with obesity epidemic. It is a British article but the same thing is gong on here.
I for one think that instead of changing the size to fit the expanding child, we should do away with sizes and use measurements to determine what to buy for our body. You are the measurement you are regardless of the artificial "size" slapped on the tag. So now I must go out and buy my perfectly healthy 2 year old child clothes in size 12mo so that they will stay on her waist, I don't know what we will do next winter as I am sure that the length of size 12mo pants will be much too short. I am so frustrated!
This practice of changing the sizing, scale "Vanity Sizing," has been done for a while in women's wear, it became prevalent during the 1980s but it is now filtering down to our children. Here is another article about it. This article is defending the practice, but It is acknowledging that it exists which is just as disturbing to me.
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School Days
11 minutes ago
This has been a hot topic in our household too. I am fired up about childhood obesity b/c it is everywhere. It is so sad to see these children who are helpless and being handed junk food that will lead to serious illnesses. That is disgusting that it is now being covered up by the changes in clothing sizes. Ugh!
ReplyDeleteI found some of what you said in this post very insulting.My two year old wears a size 4T and does not have an issue with weight-we don't feed him crap.He eats balanced meals loaded with fruits and vegetables.He was a large baby(just over 10 pounds)at birth and has gained weight easily every since-that's just the way he is built.Perhaps next time you should think about the generalization your making
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. I totally agree with you about the horrible diets most children have. We just measured L today and she is in the 60th percentile for weight and the 90th for height for her age. She is 2 and a half and we have the opposite problem. She needs 3t clothes already. L is vegetarian and eats a healthy, balanced diet with no processed sugar and almost no processed food.
ReplyDeleteI think the problem is that all children are so different and all the sizes vary so much! My mom is has just knit L a sweater using a pattern from the 1970's and she's had to use a 3/4 so I don't know if things have changed that much!