Obese Americans redefine economic expansion as oversize shops mushroom
July 4, 2004
By Patrick Cole
New York - In 1986 the Home Shopping Network, a US television channel, began offering apparel for larger women. The idea was to appeal to a group that was too embarrassed to buy in stores.
Since then the number of obese Americans has doubled to almost 60 million. And Home Shopping Network sells a range of 60 oversize women's items, accounting for almost half the clothes sold over the network, says June Saltzman, the vice-president of merchandising.
"Plus-size was treated horribly," she said of merchandising in clothing stores. "It was situated next to luggage or the candy department. It was a tough environment for these girls."
In the past decade, even as the overall apparel market has shrunk, the plus-size industry has grown more than 30 percent.
It tipped the scales at $30 billion (R186 billion) in 2003, according to market research firm NPD Group. Potential customers are the 64 percent of US adults who are overweight.
From Texas to New Jersey, companies are selling extra-wide umbrellas, seatbelt extenders, scales that can weigh people as heavy as 450kg, "size-friendly" holiday resorts and gadgets to help in putting on socks.
Engineers at car makers say the expanding American waistline may guide future car designs.
Plus-size apparel makes up more than 90 percent of the market for all goods sold to the overweight, according to retail analyst Marshal Cohen. Sales of oversized clothes from lingerie to prom dresses have increased 5 percent a year this decade as the US clothing market has contracted 9.8 percent, Cohen says.
"These are people who have legitimate needs, whether they're battling the bulge or not," says Gary Epstein, the chief executive of market research consultancy RSCG Tatham Partners in Chicago and author of Globesity, a 2003 study. "They're saying, 'Hey, I need clothing, I need larger seats - I'm prepared to pay'."
Clothing retailers such as Macy's and Bloomingdale's are offering apparel as big as XXXL, once non-existent in many mainstream stores. Torrid, a plus-size retailer, has opened 60 stores in the US since it started in 2001 and is planning to launch an additional 25 this year.
VF Corporation, which makes outdoor gear, has recorded sales of $25 million of its Curvation bra for plus-size women since introducing it early in 2003, says spokesperson Cindy Knoebel.
Casual Male Retail Group sells George Foreman waist-relaxer slacks as well as polo-style shirts at sizes that are as much as eight sizes up from extra-large - that's XXXXXXXXL - at its big-and-tall men's stores, says chief executive David Levin.
Foreman, the 55-year-old former world heavyweight boxing champion who weighs about 125kg, pitches the new line in television adverts for the company.
"Demand continually seems to be growing," says Levin.
Furniture wholesaler Mike Liedka is one of a rising number of entrepreneurs who create plus-size products they can't find anywhere else. Liedka, who has a 142cm waistline, used to wear out a couch every few years because he couldn't find one durable enough for his 160kg build.
Last year he conceived of an eight-legged frame for a couch to seat a 250kg person. He had a prototype built in October and began selling the sofas in December through a company in the San Antonio area that he named WideBodies Furniture.
He says a 200kg woman came to the showroom "and after she had sat on one of the couches she came over and hugged me and said I had saved her life".
Engineering consultant William Fabrey runs a mail order firm and website, amplestuff.com, for larger people. Among his bestsellers is a $299 scale for weighing people as heavy as 450kg.
While US-based car makers haven't begun designing vehicles for larger people, it may come to that, design engineers say.
"If the trend keeps increasing, you're going to have a lot more challenges," says Christian Civiero, an ergonomics engineer who has helped design the interiors of Ford cars and vans for the past five years.
"The customer base may end up polarising itself, and the auto makers will have to decide, 'Which customer are you going to please the most?'"
Rene Rousseau, a 225kg technical writer for Southwest Airlines in Texas, says she can't fit into a 4x4 so she drives a modified four-door Chevrolet truck with seats that slide back further than usual and a smaller steering wheel with a 25cm diameter.
"My husband and I ended up with a pick-up truck because you can't get a car without bucket seats - it's difficult getting in and out of a car," says Rousseau. "And the smaller steering wheel does not cut into the abdomen."
Rousseau's purchases have included a couch from Liedka's company, a reaching aid from Fabrey's site and 2.25m-long bath towels from Zaftique.com, a website selling clothing and general goods for large people.
Necessity prompted 170kg Tim Barry to start Intelligent Technologies, which makes seat-belt extenders for airlines. The company sells 150 to 200 extenders a month for $59.95 each.
Even some proponents of fair treatment for the obese say they are ambivalent about the new products. Advocacy groups fear that while the products may improve quality of life, they may also obscure the risk of disease and death caused by weight gain.
"You can accommodate people," says Morgan Downey, the executive director of the Washington-based American Obesity Association. "But at the same time, you have to recognise the serious health consequences of not attending to weight loss."
Still, the market for plus-sized products is surpassed by the weight-loss industry.
A 2002 study by Florida-based Marketdata Enterprises
estimated the size of the US market for weight-loss
programmes, diet
pills, low-calorie foods and health clubs at $40
billion and forecast it would grow to $48.8 billion
by 2006. - Bloomberg
Source:www.busrep.co.za
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