Retailers would like to help us remain in a state of denial about our ever expanding waistlines.


What?


It's simple, actually. We don't like facing up to the fact that we're becoming fatter by the minute, and most of us don't particularly like buying "fat clothes". We'd prefer not to notice that those size 8 dresses that used to fit no longer do, or that when we try on those 32" waist jeans that used to fit so well, they now feel like they were made for just one of our legs.


Retailers noticed and they have a solution.


They changed the sizes.


"In recent years", writes Elizabeth Landau on CNN.com, "brands from the luxury names to the mass retail chains have scaled down the size labels on their clothing". "You may actually be a size 14, and, according to whatever particular store you're in, you come out a size 10" says Natalie Nixon, associate professor of fashion industry management at Philadelphia University.

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