overweight. There are more obese people than ever before. How come the fashion designers don't make clothes that reflect that?

These low rider jeans and pants look great on slender, long legged girls and women. Unfortunately, the one's who are overweight insist on wearing them too. Maybe it's self defense. After all, for as many years as I can remember middle aged and above, men have presented themselves with their bellies hanging over their pants. So now it's the women's turn?

To compound matters, the shirts that the females wear are often designed to be short. So with summer coming there will be all those bellies hanging out. Male and female.

Full length mirrors should be a requirement in every home.

I have a full length mirror and no matter which way I turn someone has taken over my 19 year-old body. Hahahahahaha

No kidding aside I hate it when I regain weight lost. Hell, I hated it when I gained weight the first time.

I recall that event stuck in the hospital as if it were yesterday. Normally I would never take the ladder up or down a project unless I was carrying an extra load up. We used to grab two sheets of AB grade plywood and see who would stumble first humping those suckers up the Elmendorf AFB NORAD CENTER located in the upper bowels of an old hanger. On the way back down often times our boss, when he ever came out to the site, would chastise us severely for safety violations. We could be seen employing military repelling and even free jumping to the point where a new pair of Levi Jeans would split out in the crotch! We were to young and stupid to look down the road into our old age and consider what affects our rough youthful actions would have on our elderly years. Now we know...

Two years ago I lost almost one-hundred pounds then suddenly, regardless of how little I ate and how much I exercised the weight would creep back on. No, you won't find me in any of those "low rider jeans" you speak of--I never could stand being constricted.

The cars have all gotten smaller--the clothes--the whole damn world has turned into Chinese size just as years ago we complained of products from Japan being to small. Our jobs have become sit-down jobs instead of manual labor. I knew coming out of the service that I had to maintain some exercise discipline so I purposely chose an occupation where heavy lifting and endurance was needed. This worked fine for awhile then I noticed no matter what I tried I would gain weight regardless. I recall going on my own starvation diet--I still gained weight!

People may think that is funny but eventually a metabolism will slow depending on external as well as internal effects. It's all in the head Boltlady. Hahahahahahaha

Personally, I never liked being to skinny or to fat. Just as the low rider clothes offends so do many other types of clothing. Give me room lots and lots of room said the cowboy.

Seasoldier/

chastising overweight people for being overweight. Since I was kid I've had to fight that battle myself. My mother almost starved to death during the depression and she was big on always having enough food. If I was upset about something, she would say "eat some more honey, it will make you feel better". Well, if you are a chunky kid, you have weight problems from there on in.

Since I have fought the battle my whole life, I've managed to keep from blowing up like a balloon, but have always been on the plump side. I've always said that I am a medium sized woman with a really fat woman screaming to get out! No, I totally understand how difficult it can be for some people to be slim.

What I complain about is the way overweight people often dress. In the quest to be in style they too often accentuate their bulges rather than minimize them. They'll wear clothes that are way too skimpy or way too tight. Too loose solves nothing either. It's not that hard to try something on and simply make sure that it fits properly. It can be hard to look in the mirror sometimes (especially in some of those fitting rooms), but it should be done.

The designers are the one's who compound the problem. They design things for women who are size nothing and THAT's what is supposed to be fashionable. If they were to create more things in keeping with the way the public really is, the views would be a lot more pleasant.

As for the men, stretching a shirt across their belly with the buttons ready to pop does NOT make them look better.

I realize people's feet are getting fatter too, but I can't find shoes that fit anymore. I have to pay more and get narrows. I used to buy shoes off the rack pretty much anywhere. It sucks.

I actually prefer my wife a bit...ahem...Rubenesque.

Your problem with the appearance of others is just that...your problem.

I think the whole engine that makes the fashion industry work is the subconscious belief that buying a particular new fashion will make you look like the impossibly gorgeous person in the ad. A plump older lady wearing high-waisted pants will see Giselle Bundchen looking divine in her low riders, and subconsciously she'll think it's the low-riders that look sexy, and that she, too, can look sexy if she wears them. Then, once she's saturated her wardrobe with the new fashion for several years, the fashion industry will put their goddesses in something else, and the plump older lady will think she'll look great in that, and start buying a whole new wardrobe. Keep rotating the fashions, and she'll keep spending money trying to look like someone else. Even a full-length mirror won't help. She'll perceive the pants separate from her body, when she looks at them --subconsciously drawing on associations built by the fashion model-- and she'll think she looks better than she does.