Monday, April 12, 2010

MAM Day 11: Relative size & clothing sizes

This post is late too. My apologies!

Quite related to Day 10 on calories and diets, my schedule for day 11 was to discuss relative size and clothing sizes. As some of you may know, I'm a petite, tiny, mini, and "fun sized" person in comparison to most people. Let's put it this way, my 5th graders that I tutor on Fridays are all taller than I am. 5th graders! This post is my rant on why being small isn't all fun and games especially when it comes to buying clothes.

As I can't talk about weight discrimination, the opposite side of the size issue, lets talk about tshirt sizes.


One of my favorite sites to browse through and look is Threadless, a tshirt company that allows users to submit designs, vote on designs, and buy tshirts with designs that you like. Who knew that buying a tshirt could be so tough? The sizing for Threadless tshirts is fairly straightforward. However, I prefer mens cut tshirts. But no one makes mens clothes in miniature! So I have to find childrens' sizes to find the right tshirt fit. Not to mention different companies have different sizes. Even within Threadless, I've gotten extra small shirts that fit differently because of where they were made. Different countries have different measurements as well.

I sometimes wonder if it would be easier for me to tape measure myself and buy clothes based on those measurements. Or made my own clothes. For the time being, I have to submit to the measurements clothing companies are using and adjust accordingly.

Along the same lines as increasing food portions: clothing sizes have increased. I wonder if the fashion/garment industries increase the "average" size to make more money...I could also get into standards of beauty and why smaller sizes are seen as more beautiful...but I'll steer away from touchy issues for now.


On the other hand, there is evidence for "universal standards" of beauty. I did a math workshop at MathSTARS on the golden ratio and how certain proportions and ratios of human body parts are seen as more attractive. It involved a lot of measurements with string, making ratios with the measurements and trying to find the ratio of Phi in our body ratios. I enjoyed the workshop, but I don't think the kids were as involved or excited about ratios as I was.

Finally, I wanted to do this post on relative size because of some comments my roommates made about my size in relation to large animals. So I had to look up the average sizes of moose and camels and compare myself to them. Can you imagine coming face to face with a moose? Or an elephant? To elucidate, I would like to talk about one of my biggest fears: fish. Yes, I am disgusted and frightened by the idea of large fish. And believe me, they exist.


Seriously? Scary, scary fish. We haven't even gotten into giant squid or ancient dinosaur fish.


Relative size comparison between human and mosasaur, I don't think this one is to scale



Human v. killer whale v. Pliosaur


More proof of underwater scariness
And deep sea evidence This one will give me nightmares.


I wonder what size Tshirt these guys wear...

I wonder if being small has made me more conscious of size. I see people on the T who are proportionally much bigger than I am and wonder if they see size differently. Sorry for the random topic for Day 11, I just wanted to talk about being small and scared of fish.


On the topic of relative size



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3 comments:

  1. Not that I want to further your fishy fears, but your picture reminded me of this:
    http://bit.ly/b3fQL2

    That stingray is TERRIFYING.

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  2. As you may remember, I have the same problems with clothes sizes running larger, and companies apparently assuming that the more petite among us are anorexics who shouldn't be enabled by offerings of smaller sizes.

    What I do with t-shirts sometimes is trace a great-fitting t-shirt on top of a larger t-shirt, cut out the outline, and sew up the sides. It actually works pretty well and doesn't look trashy or anything, if you can sew well. Wish I had a visual aid for this, but I learned the technique from some D.I.Y. zine I've since lost.

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  3. Thanks Chrissy! I've seen the DIY video of fixing a button up shirt too (pretty much the same idea), but I haven't given it a shot yet. I spent two hours last week putting in a new button and it's accompanying hole on a shirt.

    I've also found shopping in petites doesn't quite mean anything in certain stores. I guess what I should've said is I'm disproportionate for most clothes out there. It sucks.

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