In 'Growing' U. S. Cloth Sizes Gets Smaller and Food Sizes Get Bigger

While considering writing about New Year's resolutions for weight loss, I learned about a "scam" of sorts in women's clothing manufacturing.  By scam, I mean the way manufacturers have begun changing the sizes of women's clothing to play up to their continuing struggle to lose weight.For Example, the other day I went shopping at the mall.  I tried on a skirt that fit me perfectly, and, being happy with it, I looked at the size.  It was size 4.  Never in my life have I been able to wear size 4, not even when I was in the fourth grade.  I also knew I wasn't losing weight-after all, the holiday eating binge had just ended.I bought the skirt, brought it home and measured it against a size 8 skirt hanging in my closet.  It was exactly the same size.It is the same principle used by the food industry  super-sizing everything.  Chain restaurant make "make one serving" a larger size, almost equal to what four servings were in the past.The best part of this "size creep" is what my husband has done to his clothes, I don't want to come right out and say he has gained wight, but what I can do is quote him.  "This has shrunk," he has said to me time and time again.  It makes no difference what fabric he's talking about, it is not him expanding but the clothing shrinking.  What he wants now is for the men's clothing industry to do the same as the women's industry.  He wants his size 48 jacket to become a size 18.But no matter what size we can fit into, it is true America's waistlines, as well as the rest of their bodies, are expanding. Theater and restaurant seats have been made bigger to accommodate his larger torso.  It seems to have happened everywhere except in the airline industry, where seats are smaller to cam more people int those metal tubes we fly in.It is obvious all the weight-loss fads that have come and gone in the past several years are not working.  If we think of our body as an investment in the future, it's easier to protect it.  It amounts to cutting out junk foods, eating more healthy and doing some sort of exercise to keep our pump working better. It is a long-term deal, one that cannot be solved by a fad diet but by becoming more aware of what and of how much we are eating.Like a long-term investment in stocks and bonds, this will give us all the best result.