MODERN FAMILY
THEY are the six little words that can strike fear into any man: “How do I look in this?”
When they are uttered in our house my husband looks like a condemned man, terrified of giving the wrong response and desperately trying to find a way out of the situation he has unwittingly found himself in.
Once, I even found him hiding his glasses and turning some of the lights off so he could use the excuse that he couldn’t really see what I was wearing because it was very dark and he couldn’t see properly.
Most of the time he is berated for saying “It looks nice” (I mean, what does that mean – nice good or nice bad?) and then has to put up with the huff when he does actually tell the truth, in the nicest possible way, that the outfit does not really work together.
This week it got even worse for him when (after reading a newspaper article) I asked if he thought I could squeeze into the same size jeans I was wearing when I was a 21-year-old.
He started coughing and went running out of the room muttering something about being sure he could hear one of the children shouting for him.
There are actually a pair of beautiful, dark-navy, boot-cut jeans that I adored wearing 20 years ago hanging in the very back recesses of my wardrobe. I loved them so much, and they were such a good fit, that I have never been able to part with them – even during the great lockdown clear-out of 2020.
Clothes that you don’t like anymore and don’t fit into are easy to donate or give away. But the ones that you absolutely loved but don’t fit into anymore? You’ve got to hold onto them, just in case. You might not be able to wear them anytime soon, but you’d kick yourself if you threw them out because, after all, they ‘might fit one day’.
Every time I do a wardrobe clear-out, especially at this time of year, some part of my brain talks the other half into believing that one day it could happen. I put him out of his misery quite quickly by answering the question myself. I would probably struggle to get them over my ankles, never mind actually fit in them.
But there is a serious point to the question, as experts have made the eyebrow-raising claim that if you can’t fit into the jeans you wore when you were 21, the weight gain puts you at risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
The alarming suggestion is not great news for more than half of adults who are estimated to be overweight or obese, but it follows new research showing that people with a ‘normal’ body mass index (BMI) can put the condition into remission if they lose weight.
I have to be realistic. There is little chance of me ever fitting into the jeans again, but if they do inspire me to try to be fitter and try to lose weight, then I will keep them for a bit longer.