Diversity to Discrimination: How Mid-Size and Plus-Size are Now Terms we Fear

For something that changes so flippantly throughout decades, years and even months, the ideal body size, shape and proportions are most definitely something we all approach with huge fear and self-deprecation. No matter what we look like, in our eyes there will always be someone ‘better’ or ‘more attractive’ and this need for perceived perfection is something frequently exploited by the fashion industry. We look for clothes and accessories that we think will hide, conceal or accentuate our features, all the while the list of things we love and hate are shifting and changing in a blink of an eye before us. All the while, we have something to fall back on: categorisation. No matter if it is accepted for us to be the shape of an hourglass, a pear or a cone, at least we are a size ten, right? This gives us so much comfort because being smaller seems to be celebrated as more beautiful and contrary to the magnificent peachy, rounded bodies of the renaissance period, this has been prevalent in the 20th and 21st century. For those of us who don’t quite make the cut, luckily a push for size diversity lead to the emergence of the term plus-size that people at first used as an alternative to derogatory terms such as ‘fat’ or ‘chubby’ but then evolved to just mean anyone bigger than societally acceptable. From this, plus-size models, plus-sized clothing lines and a plus-sized community were born. Is this shining a more positive light on bodies that are visually larger whether this is due to muscle, fat or bone structure? Or is this further stigmatising those who keep being marginalised and ignored by fashion lines and even pushed out of certain careers due to fat phobia? Surely an epidemic of eating disorders and body image issues will tell…

So, you may ask, what is actually BAD about being bigger? Well, the truth is, absolutely nothing. However, it can be difficult to accept the perceived appearance and size of ourselves if something different is being reflected by the media and labelled as attractive or desirable. Furthermore, a common misconception that we need to debunk is that clothing sizes (including those in plus-size ranges) equate to whether you are fit and healthy or possess the drive and willpower to be so. This begs the question: why are we so obsessed with being a certain size? You see when we click onto the website of our favourite clothing store or view an Instagram post from a beloved celebrity, many of the popularised fashions are modelled by bodies that fit a very narrow demographic, and excluding race, sexuality or ‘femininity’ for the moment, we can see most of these bodies are small. Having witnessed the ebbing and flowing trendiness of having wider hips and a larger chest, a visible consistency through all of this is having a tiny waist and very little weight with no room for the very normal muffin top to ensure healthy oestrogen levels, a biologically healthy padding around the hips of an inch of cellulite. As a result, it is no surprise that if why buy the clothes we see modelled by women with just one body type, most likely morphed by photoshop anyway, those clothes will not look the same on our own physiques. Do they look worse? Of course not, they just look different. Trouble is, if bigger is seen as the opposite of better this can cause a lack of representation, that very lack of representation that causes sizes at the upper end of the scale to be seen as things so unreasonable that they must be hidden away; this is all one very vicious cycle.

One third of UK women think anyone above a size 18 should be considered plus sized. On the surface this seems a fairly non-offensive and politically correct way of describing someone who is nearing the higher end of the clothing sizing spectrum and removes ideas that someone’s body may be larger due to weight or body fat. Clothing stores took on the opportunity to craft ranges with names like Curves or simply adding the word PLUS on to the end of the brand. Upon browsing these lines, you will see beautiful women of larger sizes modelling clothing that the brand has decided will flatter larger women. The trouble with this is it immediately distances larger sizes from the original brand- wouldn’t want to be seen as a business promoting anything different to conventional beauty standards! Moreover, if a piece of clothing is marketed in a plus-size range and not in the rest of the store, this relays a message that certain women can’t wear certain clothes, and that the styles you may love unfortunately are not for you. There is a lot to be said for representation but creating clothing in larger sizes that is not available in the smaller sizes at the heart of most brands advertising schemes is not inclusivity: its exclusion.

As the initiative for body positivity and making the real bodies we know and have be reflected in the desirable fantasy of the beauty and fashion industry, there became a greater appearance of plus-sized bodies on the runway and of course plus-sized models for plus-sized lines. As expected, the usual size zero bodies were not going anywhere, so for those left in limbo (anyone bigger than a size 8 but not quite in the plus category) what can one call that? A novel term emerged — with nothing particularly negative about it — mid-size. Turns out that our dearest size ten is no longer considered small, but rather now medium or mid or somewhere in between big or small. Fluctuating between a size eight and ten myself, an embarrassing thought occurred to me; I didn’t want to be midsize and I wasn’t quite sure why. Whilst allowing ourselves to be put into categories can create a sense of community and solidarity towards those who in this case look similar to ourselves, it can form a misunderstanding as to what the terms are to be initiated into these groups. For example, in some stores I am considered small and petite and in others I am suddenly mid-size, not that there is actually anything wrong with that. Beauty is not determined by our size and shapes and it is ridiculous to categorise it in this way when physical attractiveness is so subjective. In reality, I had been conditioned to believe that the smaller I am, the more people will accept me and it is pure luck whether social trends will attempt to appreciate or undermine the other features I possess, as if my self worth is determined by fashions that are completely out of my control. Should my self- worth be left to somebody else? Of course not!

This is why we seek comfort through something that can in fact be very segregating. Wanting to be part of a mid-size or plus-sized community can lead to misunderstanding of whether we belong there or not. You would not believe the amount of criticism that underpins this entire initiative; between scorning those we perceive as slim or small who perceive themselves as midsize because of insecurities they possess, and suddenly blocking out anyone who is above the size 16 mark (as according to surveys of opinion) and pushing them towards a definition of themselves that they do not want to accept. This is not simply forcing people to embrace ‘the harsh reality’ it is solely the need to put ourselves and each other into groupings that are built so much on peoples sensitive insecurities that inevitably there will be confusion and aguish when trying to distinguish into which place you fall. This can be incredibly dangerous when you take into account the impact on young and impressionable minds this has. 95% of eating disorder cases occur in people ages 12 to 25, inarguable evidence that a rigid idea of beauty that I decided by fashion superiors and social media influencers (not by our own opinions) is inflicted upon us at a young age when your body and mind is still developing so it is truly pointless trying to force yourself to reach a completely unattainable beauty standard. Ideas of a mid or plus size being broadcasted on social media like Tik Tok or Instagram can, for all their good intentions, have a counter-intuitive effect of distancing those with bodies who do not reach a conventionally accepted size from the idea of perfection that they may have dreamed of. So, whilst monitoring the mental implications of internalised fat phobia, I feel it is even more vital to subvert the societal ideals and goals that surround body image.

Having established the damaging (not to mention confusing) nature of sectioning off each clothing size to a category of correct, slightly less correct, and completely unacceptable, we must stop viewing smaller sizes as the baseline for everyone else to live up to. To begin, this idea is sexist and unhealthy. Although I do not agree with the cut and dry way of labelling men’s clothing with small, medium and large — men do not have to toy with the idea of plus-size or ‘curvy’ lines. To expand on this, being curvy does not necessarily equate to being larger; so dear beauty industry, decide what you would like to categorise: size or shape. The fact is that although there are unfair bodily standards pressed upon men, it is nothing in comparison to the battles that women have to face just to find clothing that fits without having to feel bad about themselves. In terms of being unhealthy, exercising and eating certain foods will help gain muscle rather than just losing body fat and we all know muscle weighs more than fat and can be bulkier on the body, causing you to move up a size or two. This is not a bad thing in the slightest, but women are caught between exercising enough to have lose all body fat but little enough so as not to gain muscle. This is mentally stressful and physically limiting, so overall completely unhealthy.

To sum up, in terms of health or subjective attractiveness, there is absolutely nothing wrong with fitting into sizes of clothing that are towards the larger side of the spectrum. The sizes I have referred to in this article are the standard numerical sizes in the UK but of course sizes differentiate between countries. This is incredibly confusing when messages are being relayed online especially in terms of midsize which is a mainly an internet movement term rather than one recognised by fashion retailers. However, when traditional ideas of beauty only showcase women of smaller body types, there is a natural fear provoked by being referred to a larger or rather even medium. Although plus size and mid-size are terms introduced with an intention of acceptance and inclusivity, they are very quickly stigmatised when used as distance markers from the ideal of smaller sizes. I fail to see the problem for fashion brands with simply making all their clothes span through a wider range of sizes, but until that day forcing ourselves into brackets purely based upon the number on a piece of clothing does much more harm than good.