The standard of beauty is undergoing a shift.

As social media gives people the opportunity to show themselves off to the world, no longer do women have to rely on “ad men” to tell them who is beautiful and who is not.

Instead, women can show off their natural beauty via social media posts that get tens of thousands of likes and celebrate beauty in all its shapes and sizes.

The average American woman now wears between a size sixteen and eighteen. These are the lower end of plus-sizes. Perhaps it’s time for the fashion industry to look at reality and design their clothes with real women in mind instead of the stick-figure models who are forced to starve themselves to fit into the tight clothes.

The study encourages clothing designers to update what they consider to be regular sizes and what they consider to be plus-size clothing. Because the average woman has increased in size in the United States, clothing needs to be updated to mirror that trend. Instead of expecting women to fit into something they simply don’t fit into, clothes need to be updated to match the modern American woman.

Dunn and co-author of the study Deborah Christel serve as faculty members of apparel merchandising, design and textiles at Washington State University. Because they did the research, they proved that the average America woman no longer wears size 2. Instead, the average woman shops for sizes 16 and 18. Fashion industry experts must update their clothing options to mirror the average woman or be left in the dust as the tides of change flood the land.

What do you think about this change in fashion?