MEASURE FOR MEASURE Shaping our sizes

Changes in average shapes affect clothing, seats, medical equipment and more.
By JUDY HEVRDEJS
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
CHICAGO -- When 6-foot-7 inch Dan Fellows gets on a plane, he has to duck. And when the 26-year-old investment rep takes the train into downtown Chicago from his west suburban home and winds up on the narrow upper tier, "Basically, I have my leg hanging out in the aisle, and it just causes problems with people trying to get up and down the aisle."
Dan, meet Gary Anders. At 5 feet 5 inches, the Milwaukee resident has his own challenges, whether buying shoes -- he wears size 71/2 -- or a sweater.
"I don't like to wear sweaters that I have to roll everything up so it looks like I grabbed my big brother's."
For sure, there have always been tall people, short people, heavy people and thin people. But these days, we do actually come in more shapes and sizes because of a mix of factors, including obesity, immigration and the popularity of pumping iron. And that has made things more complicated for manufacturers and designers trying to fit us into everything from chairs to trousers -- especially when some apparel makers use sizing data collected 40-plus years ago.
Nowhere is the issue more apparent than in the clothing stores of America, where unforgiving three-way mirrors reflect a far less homogeneous group of shoppers whose bodies no longer fit the "average" proportions of the past.
The factors
In fact, a recent article in American Demographics magazine titled "The Shape of Things to Come" suggested that apparel marketers' new bottom-line challenge is to design clothing that flatters a wider variety of American shapes and cultures. Besides citing the issue of obesity, the article noted that "average height and body shape is also changing as a result of increased diversity."
They might have added our increased interest in bodybuilding and physical fitness as well.
A study released in 2001 of U.S. Army males at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Center, a research facility in Massachusetts, credited the popularity of bodybuilding as well as a cultural shift in what makes an ideal body type with changes in body dimension.
One of the first steps toward making things fit is determining what -- exactly -- is the customer's shape. To that end, SizeUSA, a national sizing survey supported in part by the apparel industry and incorporating 3D body-scanning technology that can gather measurements in minutes, just finished measuring more than 10,500 people across the country, with results expected in late November.
Yet the United States isn't the only country fussing over fit. The government, industry and academia spearheaded the measuring of 10,000 people in Britain. In France, the clothing industry -- facing mounting grumbling from consumers peeved by poorly-fitting garments designed for bodies measured in the 1950s -- launched a similar program to measure 11,000 earlier this year.
The trends
In the United States, some trends already are emerging.
"Probably the general thing that we're seeing [is that] hips and seats and posteriors are wider," said Jim Lovejoy, director of SizeUSA, from his office in Cary, N.C.
"It makes a lot of sense because we sit a lot more than we used to, especially if you're thinking about 100 years ago. We drive. We sit. We watch television. We work on computers," he said.
Lovejoy added that they are also finding a wider range of body shapes beyond the classic hourglass figure of days past, when "bust and hips [measured] the same and the waist was 5 or 10 inches less." Today, they have found shapes expanding beyond the hourglass to include pear, round and tubular, among others.
What's behind this nationwide growth spurt?
"Public health conditions have improved, diets have [improved], and children are maturing at younger ages," said Kevin M. Kelly, associate research scientist at the University of Iowa College of Public Health. "Because of better nutrition and better overall health, we are able to reach more of our growth potential."
With 64 percent of U.S. adults overweight or obese, according to figures from the Center for Disease Control's National Center for Disease Statistics, obesity stories have been flooding the media. The latest? Medical-equipment makers and ambulance crews are bulking up their stretchers to handle the increased number of obese Americans.
Will it work?
Whether consumers will find clothing or shoes or furniture that actually fits remains to be seen.
"The general answer that [apparel makers] have given so far," said SizeUSA's Lovejoy, "is that they just want to understand better what the current U.S. population looks like with all its diversity in sizes and weight gains and all of that kind of thing so they can do the adjustments that are necessary.
"We've had a few inquiries from automotive companies," he added, "but right now our sponsors are primarily interested in the apparel business."