The SizeUSA project has scanned 10,800 men and women and their report on American body sizes is now complete. You can buy the full results for $20,000. Whether or not the clothing industry adjusts its sizing based on this new data remains to be seen. One point of information that the project director was willing to disclose is that although size 8 is considered a baseline size for American women, less than 10% of the women scanned for the survey met the definition for that size. Overall, Americans are getting taller and heavier, but the weight is increasing faster than the height, so the size proportions are no longer a good fit. Size of the machine, cost, and sheer practicality are keeping clothing stores from using the sizing scanner for creating customized clothing. I think we’ll have to cope with squashing or swimming our nonstandard physiques in the standard sizes for a while longer yet. (source: NY Times article)