Time may finally have run
out for the hourglass figure, according to a survey of the changing shape of
Britons.
The Government-backed study
found that women's waistlines have expanded by more than six inches over the
last 50 years. At the same time, the typical bust and hips have grown by just
one inch.
Researchers say the fast
food, couch potato lifestyle is to blame for the change in typical female
figure from a curvy Diana Dors to a straighter Bridget Jones.
The authors of the study -
which found that about 40 per cent of people were overweight - believe men have
ballooned just as much as women over the last few decades but are unable to
make the same comparison because of a lack of data.
Philip Treleaven, the
National Sizing Survey's director, said he was shocked by the results.
"We expected an
increase," he said. "But the waistline has just exploded."
The survey used
three-dimensional, computerised body scanners to check the vital statistics of
more than 11,000 volunteers aged 16 to 95. The scanners made more than 1.5
million measurements accurate to within two millimetres.
They found that the typical
British woman was 5ft 4.5in (1.63m) tall and weighed 143.5lbs (65kg). The
average bust size was 38.5in (98cm), the typical waist was 34in (86cm) and the
mean hips measurement was 40.5in (103cm). The typical man was 5ft 9.5in tall,
weighed 174lb (79kg), had a 42in (107cm) chest, a 37in (94cm) waist, and 40.5in
(102cm) hips.
Around 38 per cent of women
and 44 per cent of men in the survey were overweight or clinically obese, the
researchers at the London College of Fashion and University College London
found.
Using Body Mass Index
(BMI), a measurement relating to weight and height, they concluded that 12 per
cent of women and six per cent of men were underweight.
A similar study was carried
out in 1951, when thousands of inspectors, armed with tape measures, recorded
women's body shapes.
Compared with that study,
women's waists are now 6.5in wider, their busts and hips are 1.5in bigger while
they are carrying an extra 7.5lbs.
Jeni Bougourd, who managed
the latest study, said the change in body shape was almost entirely due to
lifestyle.
Women's liberation from
tight girdles and restrictive underwear only partly explained the change.
"The amount that the
waist has changed is interesting," she said. "In the early 1950s
women wore undergarments that pulled in the waist, which might have affected
their measurements in the earlier study.
"However, that can
only explain part of the change. The hourglass has disappeared and women have
become straighter."
Women today are also 1.5in
taller than they were in the early 1950s, the result of improvements in
childhood and prenatal nutrition since the first half of the last century.
The researchers also compared
the results with a similar survey carried out in America, SizeUSA. It found that while
British women had become heavier in the last 50 years, they still had some way
to go to catch up with their American counterparts.
The average weight of an
American woman was 155.5lb, compared with 143.5lb in Britain.
The UK study, supported by the Department
of Trade and Industry and companies including John Lewis, Marks and Spencer and House
of Fraser, will provide valuable information to clothes designers and retailers.
Some shops that were using
the data had seen a fall in the number of returned clothes, Ms Bougourd said.
Others had designed new shop window dummies to reflect the straighter figure.
Marks and Spencer regularly
carries out its own confidential survey of body size. Four years ago it changed
its clothes labelling system so that the old size 14 became a size 12. Other
shops have made similar adjustments.
