The other day I was shopping around for some athletic shorts, and as I have mentioned in a previous post, I am a full-figured, plus-sized woman. As I was browsing through the racks of athletic shorts, I noticed a trend. 75% of the rack was size small or extra small (why is this even a thing?), 20% were medium, and 5% were larges. Absolutely nothing bigger than a large. Frustrated, I figured that maybe the women's section of the department store would have the plus-sized athletic clothing. How kind of them to make the womens' wear section a one-stop shop for everything above size 14 (please note intense level of sarcasm in that statement). So, I walked around the store to the womens' section, and guess what? If you guessed that there was absolutely no athletic clothing there, you'd be correct! What is up with that? I mean, seriously!
Society keeps telling us that there's an obesity epidemic and demands that people of a certain weight eat healthier and work out to lose weight. However, how they expect this to happen when stores don't carry athletic clothing in larger sizes is beyond me! It's just not logical. You're essentially making it more difficult for someone to do something that they probably don't want to do in the first place. And even if they do want to work out to lose weight, they might become dissuaded or frustrated with how difficult it is to find appropriate workout attire. If overweight individuals cannot purchase athletic clothing in stores, their only other option is to order them online; however, that doesn't make anything easier. They still have to find something online in their size (which will be frequently sold out online), pay extra money to order it (s&h is a pain!), and hope that it fits when it shows up after at least a week of waiting. If it doesn't fit, then it must be returned (additional s&h) and the buyer will either reorder it in a different size, or give up and take a refund.
My proposal: if stores would start offering athletic clothing in larger sizes, overweight individuals might be more likely to start working out and lose weight. This even benefits the clothing companies, because when people lose weight, they have to buy new clothes in their new, smaller size! See, everyone benefits from this, so please, clothing companies and stores, start offering decent plus-sized athletic clothing IN STORES!
No comments:
Post a Comment