10 Sep Your lying pants

Last year, James Fallows illustrated the growing girth of North American’s by digging up photos from the 1950s of Jackie Gleason, Alfred Hitchcock, and Ramond Burr. Gleason was a notorious fatso. Hitchcock and Burr were celebrated symbols of portliness. None would draw a second look today.

Now comes evidence that the shift in our perception of what constitutes fat has been getting a quiet nudge from pants manufacturers in the form of “vanity sizing.”

Abram Sauer, of Esquire’s Style Blog, snuck a measuring tape into the change rooms of a series of men’s retail chains and came back with this heartbreaking news about the real state of his, and our, waistlines:

I recently bought some Haggar and Dockers pants on extreme sale at the Bay. My, but they’re comfy. Now I know why, dammit.

Hat tip: Daily Dish.