How to find body measurement charts for children

This blog entry is part of a series on The Essential Guide to Children's Clothing Sizes.

There are a lot of children's body measurement charts floating around the Internet. But are they reliable? The answer to that question is difficult to determine. I have looked at some of the free charts out there and some are pretty good and others definitely have some anomalies. While I won't single out any particular chart, I would urge some caution on relying on whatever you can find freely on the Internet.

Some of the anomalies include inconsistent body measurements and differences between sizes. This may sound odd because you would expect that a size should measure what it measures. Having read a few measurement studies, the raw data that backs up body measurements are inconsistent between the sizes. But that raw data is difficult to work with, especially when it comes to grading. So statisticians and data analysts take the raw data and average it out. Then they take the average body measurements and adjust the numbers up or down small amounts to obtain numbers that are easy to work with as a convenience for pattern making and grading. This type of data manipulation does not result in fit anomalies as might be expected despite cries of vanity sizing and inaccuracies.

It's hard to say how these free charts available on the Internet came about. I suspect many of them are based off of cribbed data from various retailers. Some may be based on measuring some children. Some may be straight from official measurement studies. Regardless, caution is warranted.

You can use the free charts on the Internet, if you choose. It may be a place to start. It may also be a source of frustration if things aren't working quite right in your product development.

However, there are places to acquire body measurement charts. Some free, some not.

ASTM is an organization that develops standards, including body measurement standards. However, there standards are not free and contain restrictions on their use. This is the place for the most up-to-date measurement standards with sizing studies to back most of it up. Search for these standards on the Internet to find them.

D4910 - Size standard for infants, sizes preemie -24M

D6860 - Size standard for Boys, sizes 6-24, Husky

D6192 - Size standard for Girls, sizes 2-20, (Regular and Slim), plus sizes

D6829 - Size standard for Juniors, size 0-19

The U.S. government created a series of body measurement standards, which were in use into the 1980's. They were later withdrawn in favor of the ASTM standards. However, these charts are in the public domain and can still be found with some difficulty. In recent years the government has even pulled these from the Internet. They may still be found at government document repositories located within various libraries around the country or requested through standards.gov. I include complete copies of these standards in my book The Essential Guide to Children's Clothing Sizes. I created cleaned up versions of these standards that are easier to read in the appendix. I also include missing measurements from the original standard, which are the neck circumference, hand, and foot lengths and widths.

CS151-50 - Children

PS45-71 - Young Men

PS36-70 - Boys

PS54-72 - Girls

It is true that the withdrawn standards are a bit out of date. However, even the purchased, most up-to-date measurement charts from ASTM are based on this earlier standard. ASTM has added some sizes and refined some of the body measurements, but the similarities are still there. In other words, you can use the withdrawn standards as a good starting point in your product development and not be too far off. You will at least have a better foundation than using body measurement charts from unknown sources with questionable measurement data.

For this and more, see The Essential Guide to Children's Clothing Sizes.

Size standardization for clothing

In academic circles there is the idea that we need one measurement and sizing standard to solve all our fitting problems. A top down approach with no allowance for variation. Customers often complain that manufacturers have no idea what they are doing because nothing ever fits. Manufacturers face an enormous challenge in trying to interpret size specifications while at the same time meeting the needs of their customers. The more I read about sizing the more chaotic it seems. At the end of the day there is more than one way to look at size standardization, and I think only one battle to fight.

One standard to rule them all

Yes, the idea that one standard can be established for everyone. By forcing compliance we will have peace on earth, and yes, our clothes will fit! Considering the variety of shapes and sizes in the United States alone, the idea is really a fantasy.

• One standard guarantees that some of the population will not have any clothes that fit. One could argue this situation exists today, so why not try one standard. With no allowance to adapt to fit the wide range of shapes and sizes, then outliers will never have clothes that fit.
• Our population is constantly changing. The most recent sizing study revealed that we are taller and weigh more than we did in the past. One standard would quickly become outdated.
• Sizing studies are very expensive and labor intensive. Studies are not done frequently, so manufacturers will always be behind what is happening in the real world.

Loosely conforming to a standard while yet adapting to meet a customer's need.

Even if one standard to rule them all is unrealistic, we still need a standard. ASTM and the latest Sizing USA study have provided us with a standard that any manufacturer can use (for a price, of course). These measurement and sizing specs can act as a guide, a place to start. As a manufacturer develops their customer profile, they can adapt these standards to meet the needs of their customer.

Over the years, it's important to compare your product against these standards. I've seen patterns and sizing drift from these standards naturally through errors. These errors are not intentional, they just happen and can easily pass from one style to the next. So a careful study and comparison can bring things back. This includes measuring fit models and comparing them against the standard and analyzing customer returns due to fit issues. 

In-house size standardization

Once a sizing standard is established for a brand, it is important to adhere to that standard during product development. As an example, all new pants styles have the same finished length and waist sizes as specified. Variations in fit can come from multiple sources due to fabric variations (or problems), construction issues (taking too big/small a seam allowance, cutting errors), or variations in a pattern. You have to be careful not to draft a pattern from scratch every time. Pattern makers in the industry will use the patterns from an already proven style to develop the new style. This practice ensures consistent fit across styles. A quality control process through each step of development and production is necessary to find problems before they become big ones.

A few words on vanity sizing

Vanity sizing implies that a manufacturer wilfully chooses to ignore a size standard and relabel a size smaller than it actually is. I do not believe there is a vast conspiracy to do this intentionally. Instead I think manufacturers are trying to meet the needs of their customers while trying to conform to a standard.

*This blog entry was inspired from my reading in the book Sizing in Clothing and more specifically the article Sizing Standardization by K. L. LaBat. I made very few notes on this article and don't remember much of what I read. I did make a note that LaBat tried to prove the existence of vanity sizing by studying children's age-based sizing. I thought the argument was rather weak.