Darn it all, I kind of figured this out all on my own, but to see the actual measurements is really depressing. Especially for someone who does actually buy jeans from Old Navy.
Esquire investigates — and tells me that the waistline is a lie. The chart:
But that’s not all — it’s not just a vanity thing. Style blogger Abram Sauer says:
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.
He also points out that these are, at least putatively, measurements:
This isn’t the subjective business of mediums, larges and extra-larges — nor is it the murky business of women’s sizes, what with its black-hole size zero. This is science, damnit. Numbers! Should inches be different than miles per hour? Do highway signs make us feel better by informing us that Chicago is but 45 miles away when it’s really 72?
Exactly!
Grant Hamilton
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