Stores Offering “Plus” Sizes For Young Girls: Are You Buying It?

September 3rd, 2012 - By Tonya Garcia

Left to right: Morgan Joseph, her mom Sharon, Today correspondent Janice Lieberman and host Savannah Guthrie. Image: Today.MSNBC.com

While you were sleeping in this Labor Day morning, the TODAY show was taking a look at a new retail trend in girls clothing. The increasing number of overweight children in the U.S. and the higher number of girls who are simply growing bigger and taller at a younger age has prompted more stores to carry “plus-size” girls clothing.

According to the report from the show’s consumer correspondent Janice Lieberman, larger-sized children’s clothing has always been around. And for boys, it’s typically called “husky.” But for young girls, finding stylish clothes is difficult. Sears, Gap, Children’s Place and other stores are responding to the need. Sears has a “Pretty Plus” line for girls between the ages of seven and 12. Other retailers are offering bigger sizing for girls as young as three, most of it online.

In the studio interview, Morgan Joseph, an 11-year-old who is already 5′ 9″ tall, talked about the troubles she’s had shopping for clothes, noting that she even had a problem finding an outfit to wear on the show that would fit and be “age appropriate.” Sitting beside her mother Sharon, she said she plans on launching her own line of clothing.

“I don’t want [other kids] to go through what I had to go through,” she said at one point.

She also has a problem with the term “plus size.”

“I don’t really enjoy the word ‘plus,’” she said. “I think there should just be numbers like they do for other kids.”

With back-to-school shopping happening later this year, there are probably a lot of parents out there still grappling with this issue as well. Across all age groups, retailers have found value in selling plus-size clothing with more stores and brands — like H&M and The Limited —  offering larger sizes. The Los Angeles Times quotes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says more than a third of Americans are obese and nearly two-thirds of women are overweight. At least half of women wear a size 14 or larger. As a result, this is a growing segment of the retail industry, with sales expected to reach about $7.5 billion this year.

Parents, schools and politicians are fighting the growing childhood obesity issue. School lunches coming under greater scrutiny and more emphasis being placed on exercise and the health problems that arise for children who’ve put on a lot of weight. But, as the segment shows, it’s not just an issue with obesity. Some kids just grow quickly.

Do you agree with Morgan that retailers should use a different term? Should “plus-size” clothing come under a different name?

Tags:

, , , , , , ,
More from StyleBlazer
More from MommyNoire

Comment Disclaimer

Comments that contain profane or derogatory language, video links or exceed 200 words will require approval by a moderator before appearing in the comment section. XOXO-MN

  • sheila

    This is nothing new. When I was growing up my mom shopped a Sears for me because they were the only store to carry clothes for plus size girls…they called them HUSKY. LOL

  • questions

    I have a question: If more than half of the women in the United States wear a 14 or above, why are these sizes still called plus sizes? I am not condoning obesity, but if its the majority, why call it plus size instead of average, or better yet, don’t label it any differently than the sizes 0-12?

  • gmarie

    I think this is awesome. As a big and tall chubster child (5th grade-middle school) once I’d grown out of “husky” sizes from the jcp catalogs my mother had to shop for me out of Lerner’s NY. We can have the chicken or the egg argument all day but but I’d much rather be able to purchase age appropriate clothing for my child then to have to shop for them from sexualized super form fitting adult contemporary sections of the department store.

    Encouraging better eating habits are great and I’m all for it, but no child-no PERSON is going to go from being overweight to not overweight by next week. What do you suggest they wear in the mean time?

  • Echo

    As a “pretty plus” girl back in the day, I was thrilled to have Sears has an option for stylish, age-appropriate gear but frequently bummed that I couldn’t find options at other retailers. While I wasn’t obese, I certainly was slightly larger than my peers; and that didn’t really kick in until I was entering puberty. As a teen and into college, I pretty much stayed between sizes 16-18 and it was almost impossible to find stylish, age-appropriate clothes. So I wound up shopping in the same department as my mom, and, as a result, looking older than I wanted to look. The clothes weren’t skimpy by any means; I just looked 41 instead of 21…and at that time, I was not feeling that at all!

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/thesapphireempress96?feature=results_main A.J.

    I think that people need to realize that there is a difference between obesity and a child just being chubby/big. Weight fluctuates, especially among children. I agree that the obesity problem is a huge one in our society, and we all need to take steps to encourage healthy habits. But to deny overweight children, especially young girls, the chance to get clothing that fits them and looks nice is just wrong. They have a right to be comfortable too, and chances are they’re already sensitive about the way they look. Not everyone has to buy plus sizes because they eat too much; some girls are just big, some are tall, while others have body parts that have developed ahead of their peers. Case in point: I had to buy a training bra in first grade while the other girls in my class were still wearing undershirts or nothing.

  • phat504

    As a big plus sized fat plump or whatever u wanna call it woman I knw how it feels to not be able to dress like others b/c your big… I dnt see how making fashionable clothing for girls or teens who are a little or a lot thicker than others is accomadating (spell check) a problem… would u rather them starve or overwork themselves to fit into certain things… none of these girls choose to be big and if they do well so be it… at the end of the day it all boils down to a girl wants to feel beautiful on her first day of shool or any other time in life so why not think outside of the box and incorporate some age appropriate AFFORDABLE fashionable clothes

  • Kay

    I was never, ever obese as a kid, but I was bigger and taller than all the other kids. At age 10, I was 5’7 and 130 lbs, shaped like a woman, and wearing a womans sizes. My mom would have loved if she could find clothes and shoes that she felt a 5th grader should wear instead of having to shop in womens and juniors. Sometimes grown men would come up to me, a little girl…and that was tough. What does a 5th grader say to a man? Everyone isn’t some cookie cutter size, and people who are bigger or taller are not “freaks”. I’m still 5’7…everyone else has just caught up. So yes, I am glad little girls who just happen to grow up faster can find age appropriate clothes.

  • DoinMe

    These kids nowadays are humongous and its because of lifestyles. Instead of boo-whooing about shopping in plus-sized sections,which has been around forever, these parents should worry about getting their kids out of the house to play and run around like kids used to do. Instead, they allow them sit in front of a computer, TV, and video games all day and eat junk including fast food. What do they expect?

    • Kay

      Every big kid isn’t obese.

    • Hello_Kitty81

      What about the kids who live in dangerous neighborhoods where gang bangers do drive by shootings outside and innocent kids getting killed by stray bullets? Parents are afraid to let their children go outside. Of course there’s recess and Physical Education in schools but some schools took them away in recent years.

  • Hello_Kitty81

    My daughter starts kindergarten tomorrow and when I went shopping for her school uniforms I seen “husky boys and plus size girls” sizes at Old Navy and Rainbow and it’s been like this for a while. I saw the segment this morning and wonder “why the Today Show just now talking about this?”.

  • guest

    This is like saying that spoons make people fat. Stop debating over dumb crap as if this is a new issue. PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE and they need clothes. Yes obesity is a problem, but not having clothes to fit them wont make the problem go away.

  • Miss Anonymous

    I have no issues with them expanding children’s clothes for children. I just wish more of them dressed like kids and not like their in their 20′s. My sister is tall and bigger than other kids (at almost 11, she is almost taller than me and im in my 20′s. unfortunately she got our dad”s tall genes) and we want her to still dress like a kid and not have to shop in the juniors section yet. Its hard enough for me to find decent clothes that dont show off all my chest, stomach and legs so I know it would be harder for her.

  • http://twitter.com/DTFunkyChocolat Dannie

    I was fat myself when I was a child (like really fat) But in 6-7th grade, I really cut down, I’m still a bit chubby now, but not nearly as bad as I was as a kid. Speaking as someone who was a fat child, I think we need to stop… accommodating it. I think that we have to tell kids that it’s not okay to be fat. At that age, they may not exactly be worrying about their health but that indeed is one of the biggest concerns. Hell, they may not even notice their appearance, but other kids will. And they will give them hell for it.

    It’s no joke being bullied for your weight as a child…(Of course, Parent’s should also build up the child’s self esteem, but still)

  • Kayo

    If not ‘plus size’, what else could those sizes be called?

    • Kay

      Hmm. Good point. Plus just has a negative connotation. I’m sure marketing geniuses could figure out something?

      • Britt

        “plus” only has a negative connotation because it picks at the already insecure fat people that have no choice but to buy these clothes. If these people had confidence, a single word wouldn’t make them feel bad.

  • http://www.facebook.com/courtney.puzzo Courtney Puzzo

    oh please when a girl is as tall as the young lady in this article is at her age then of course it’s consiered abnormal unless they have giantism or something. as for the plus or husky sizes they’ve had those for decades. @IAJS that’s a do as I say not as I do approach which doesn’t work. It’s the same as not letting kids have cookies when they’re little and then one of them creates the first organic competetor to the oreo as an adult. which is the story of Nell Newman her mom didn’t allow sweets in the house growing up but one of the first things she created for her organic food line was Newman O’s a rip off of the Oreo and now the best selling organic cookie in the country

  • xxdiscoxxheaven

    yawn.. they have had these “plus” or “husky” sized clothes since I was a kid.

    • lilyohio

      I agree…plus-size kid clothing has been around for years. Obesity is a problem, however overweight children need clothes too.

  • IAJS

    I think that parents should encourage better eating habit and exercise. This problem is out of hand and people should really want better for their kids. And by better I mean teaching them better habits, not buying them pretty clothes to cover up the problem.