Size matters

Unless you get yours custom tailored, you fumble through the racks until you find your size. But something of a shell game has been going on in the women's clothing industry. Some call it size inflation: today's garment marked size 4 is actually yesterday's size 8, with the current 8 the former 12 and the current 12 the big old 16-and who wants to be labeled a 16 anymore, despite the grim reality? It's bigger without having to acknowledge it, a conscience-easer for those on the wrong side of the statistics: more than 60 percent of American adults and 20 percent of children are now overweight or obese. Children's sizes? Sure to be re-labeled next, if researchers who studied teenagers in 15 industrialized countries are to be believed. American teens topped the list, outweighing, in every teen age group, counterparts in Austria, the Czech republic, Denmark, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Ireland, Israel, Portugal, Slovakia and Sweden. Got to get those kids off the couch and on to the fitness center.

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