No wonder women have body image problems when retailers like H&M make them feel fat

Shopping for clothing can be a dispiriting experience. Every single high-street store has different sizing, often varying bust and hip measurements by up to three inches. And don’t ever try on a swimsuit after lunch, or in a changing room that doesn’t have a door that locks, if you don’t want to plunge into depression.

Hunting for trousers or jeans is a particularly tortuous process, so I totally sympathise with student Ruth Clemens (size 14), who posted a picture of herself struggling to fit into a pair of H&M jeans, allegedly size 16, on Facebook.

Enraged, Ruth wrote an open letter to the retailer asking “Am I too fat for your range?” and it’s been shared more than 8,000 times. She’s hardly overweight, just a perfectly normal body shape, and yet the largest size at H&M (16) is nowhere near big enough.

Every man and woman I talk to has had similar experiences searching for clothes that fit, from sweaters to pants to shirts and shoes.

I’m a size "large" in trousers at Zara, a 12 in some ranges at Marks & Spencer, a 14 at Topshop, a 16 at Next and "medium" in some dresses at Mango.

Even within one retailer’s clothing ranges, sizing will vary drastically from tops to dresses and from one collection to another, because they are made at different factories all over the world, often sewn by women on a minimum wage without an inch of spare flesh on their bodies. God knows what these workers make of a UK size 20.

Clothing retailers complain that shoppers now place multiple orders online for different sizes and shapes, and that the cost of repackaging and processing the returns is cutting into their profits and will affect pricing. Get over it, I say. Until clothing manufacturers treat us with respect, of course we are going to over-order. Life is too short to make endless trips to the post office or collection point.

But even multiple shopping online doesn’t diminish the misery when you have been looking forward to trying on a piece of clothing and when it comes the ruddy thing won’t fit over your knees in any size.

I ordered a sweater recently, and couldn’t get my arms into the narrow sleeves; the garment would have fitted a skeletal 12-year-old. No wonder women have issues about their body image, when you are constantly invited to believe you are fat.

An e-petition asking the government to force UK women’s clothing to adopt standard sizing back in 2014 only attracted 130 signatures. This isn’t a trivial issue, so let’s have another drive to force through legislation to standardise sizing throughout the high street.