Less Is More: Your Pants Are Lying to You. The Truth About Vanity-Sizing

Warning: Your actual waistline might be bigger than you think.

Your pants have been deceiving you for years … and the lies are getting bigger.  Here is a chart showing the actual waist size (measured in inches) compared to the waist size shown on the pants.

 

100920 waistline-vs-actual-measurement-chart-for-men's pants

The chart came from this Esquire article. Here are some other excerpts.

"Do highway signs make us feel better by informing us that Chicago is but 45 miles away when it's really 72? Multiplication tables don't yield to make us feel better about badness at math; why should pants make us feel better about badness at health? Are we all so many emperors with no clothes?

… Now that you know the truth — down-waisting is genuine cause for concern. A recent report published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that men with larger waists were twice at risk of death compared with their smaller-waist peers. Men whose waists measured 47 inches or larger were twice as likely to die. Yet, most men only know their waist size by their pants — so if those pants are up to five inches smaller than the reality, some men may be wrongly dismissing health dangers."

So, are you surprised … or just motivated to shop at Old Navy?

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0 Comments
  1. Great article, thanks for sharing.

    I think it also depends on a few factors including style of trousers which affects the waist size. I’ve tried a few different pairs of trousers on at the same shop, only different styles and the size seemed ridiculously different even though they were the same waist size.

    Thanks.

  2. While the information about pant size is nice, the information about death is pretty inaccurate. No matter what a doctor might say, everyone has 100% chance of death. So saying someone with a large waist is twice as likely to die, needs to be quantified in some manner because everyone dies. They are twice as likely to die sooner? Twice as likely to die overweight? Twice as likely to die happy? In any case, they are not twice as likely to simply die because everyone dies.

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