Who are we kidding?

I just love how the fashion world patronises us in an oh-so-obvious way.

It's yesterday's news that on the whole, people are getting larger. Obesity is on the rise and will no doubt reach epidemic proportions within the near future.

I'm lucky in that I've been blessed with a fairly good metabolism. I may have gained about ten pounds within the last few years, but since I'd always been thin I'm now average in weight.

In years past, I was always a size eight, maybe even a ten depending upon whether the garment was cut on the smaller size. I believe I even have some vintage items from my mother that are a size twelve. But now thanks to our expanding waistlines and fashion's transparent attempt to make us think we still look like we are still fourteen years old, I'm a size zero or a two. Do I honestly care so long as I find something that fits me properly and does the job? Apparently though, lots of women do. It's a big thrill for some girls to suddenly find themselves down from size fourteen to a size eight. Enough to make them buy ten pairs of pants just to have that lovely small size tag staring back at them.

Children's clothes are also made much larger. So that we can tell larger children that "look you fit into a size ten tall ... see you're no different than your friends". I guess I can see the point given that eating disorders are also on the rise amongst our pre-teens. It's pretty scary to hear third and fourth graders worrying about calorie intake and fat content. We wouldn't want our girls developing complexes about their bodies, now would we? And yet, we then prance around and happily announce to our girlfriends that we now fit into a teeny size four, so aren't we so thin now?

In the end though, how blind do the fashion moguls think we are, or how much do they think we are willing to fool ourselves? I mean, I know I'm not really a size zero. I'm hardly overweight, but I'm no waif either. And my perfectly average and normally sized eight-year-old daughter isn't "teeny" or "petite" as the salespeople like to crow delightfully. She's just surrounded by a sea of overly large clothes.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet and a larger person by any other hang tag is still going to be faced with her own mirror image at home. Intead of deluding ourselves into thinking we are something we aren't, shouldn't we just learn to love and accept what we are?