Hospitality industry bucks the obesity trend

While the nation battles obesity, it seems that our industry is bucking the trend and actually getting slimmer - presumably because we're all working so damned hard.

According to one uniform supplier in Edinburgh, increasing numbers of female staff are needing uniforms in the elusive (well to some of us anyway) size 0. Around 50% of the women's trousers it supplies are now size 8 and under, while men are also slimming down and are needing smaller chest sizes.

Gill Eastgate, MD of NKD clothing  said the company now supply sizes 4 and 6 as standard and frequently have to supply more size 6s than 12s. This flies in the face of the national norm, where women's average size is 16.

Eastgate attributed the anomaly to the fact that hospitality workers spend so much time running around on their feet and also the inlflux of Eastern Europeans who tend to have a tall thin build.