Wait Watching and Genes (Semi-rant)

I'm waiting and watching myself wait for a sensible article on genes. (Okay that's not quite true, but read on fearless reader and I'll explain).

As I've gotten older and my metabolism has slowed down, I've put on a few extra pounds and although I've tried to step up my activity, I also seem to be craving sweets in ways I never have before, (stress, no doubt) while living in a semi-immobile state at my desk where I handle papers over and over and over, like poor Franz Kafka at his desk in the bank or dyspeptic insurance adjuster Barton Keyes from the film Double Indemnity.



So I've joined a little web group to help keep me honest about that fourth chocolate chip cookie of the day and they send out helpful little tips about all kinds of things, most of which I find interesting, helpful or amusing. Well, today I was none of the above, I was incensed. Melissa Sperl (clearly a hardworking freelance writer and photographer, whom I bear no ill-will) penned a little recommendation for all of us heavy girls who have stopped wearing jeans. The sentiment of the article is good: Women tend to avoid buying jeans in proportion to their weight according to her statistics, so she offers this advice for larger women in the jean purchasing department:

Buy dark denim
Find the right fit
Balance the back pocket
Get a boot cut

(Okay, so far so good, but then she says...)

Buy stretch jeans
Go for a medium low-rise (just below the navel)
Consider cropped pants.

Holy Toledo, Batman (with Cleveland and Cinncinati thrown in as well!

Ahem, I think a lot of that advice is well, ill-advised. For some of us having a low cut jean means that flesh pops out over the top of the jean and personally,



I don't wish to reveal that part of my anatomy to just anyone and everyone except under carefully chosen circumstances!




I also think that shorter jeans (while they may display the ankle nicely as pointed out by Ms. Sperl) also cut the body line horizontally and emphasize body width. (I've been disguising my body for years, so I think I know what I'm writing about. It also makes short people (me) look even shorter and if they are heavy, even heavier!)

Stretch jeans! I hate stretch jeans, because they reveal bulges and are simply not as comfortable as good old cotton jeans. I know the chemicals used for growing cotton are bad for the environment, so what we need is good old-fashioned hemp and organic cotton jeans.(Just like the Levi brothers used to make) Is that asking too much?

If many women aren't wearing jeans anymore (especially in the larger sizes),it is because clothing makers are making jeans for the minority (the skinny) population and not listening to us "non-stylish" real women.

I don't buy jeans because I can't find high rise, wide in the hips, full length, boot cut jeans made out of cotton very easily. (Almost all boot cut jeans these days are low-rise. (Can you see the fumes rising from my brain!?)

Finally, while we all want to be thinner and healthier, I think we have a right to live without shame. Science shows how hard it is to lose weight and if we are the size we are, then we are and when we lose our weight we of course have a right to be proud, but we should not feel ashamed to wear the clothing we like regardless of our size!



So, there is vindication after all for Ms Sperl's recommendations, I guess, but still, if the point is to look thinner, then there is one set of advice, if it is to be free to wear what one likes then that is something altogether different and it boils down to the fact that merchants should consider their real market.

Advice for entrepreneurs: Build a good pair of jeans ant the world will beat a pathway to your door! Just one woman's humble opinion (with fumes.)