Nothing gets my goat more than people making assumptions (I do it all the time of course, but I’m not writing about me). Like sportswear designers, for example.

It costs money, you know, to sign up to these organized sporting events but as the runs, walks and swims are all for chariddy I don’t usually mind. Besides, you get a goody bag and a T-shirt, sometimes even some fruit. No doubt a lot of our donated cash goes on the sportswear you get in these goody bags. The outfit for this weekend’s event was an unusual T and shorts combination, the bottom half being a nice little addition – sadly, ‘little’ being the key word.

It’s bad enough that I carry about an extra fifth of the weight that I used to be, that I’m not the shape I was when I was 18 and never will be, that my age and stupid hormones mean I pile on the pounds fast then just can’t get rid of them again (and yes, that I have a cake habit that suits none of the above). But then why not go and boot me when I’m down by designing fitness clothes that only a child’s teddy bear might wear? It wasn’t like I’d tried to stuff myself into a Medium or even a Large. I’d given up, this time, on pretending that the clothes sizes would apply to anyone normal and ordered a Supersize.

I tried on the shorts and T combo in front of Mr PC, who had that mute, wide-eyed expression that men get when they are about to be asked a ‘how-do-I-look?’ question and the resulting answer must be very, very carefully given. He had no chance – I couldn’t even get the shorts over my calves, let alone knees or any further up, and as I hobbled sideways in a tangle of tiny Lycra we ended up giggling about how ridiculously miniscule the outfit was. ‘Are you sure they’re XL?’ he managed. The designer, clearly, was blind, or just very stupid.

Joking aside I’m really livid about this. You come to expect overly small sizes when you live in Southeast Asia because in this part of the world there is a mythological design belief that women’s clothes should be made for a short Kate Moss, or thinner. Quite why I have no idea because it is NOT true that all Asian women are tiny; I’ve seen large ones as well as small ones – here in Singapore there is just as wide a range of people as there is in any other country in the world: there are tiny western women here just as there are tiny Singaporean women. Big ones and small ones, we are built in all shapes and sizes no matter where we live and no matter where we come from.

It’s not enough that us westerners in Singapore get the blunt end of the stout stick in shops, but then to bring it into the realms of fitness – well, just who do you suppose is running these races? We’re not all going to be stick insects, are we? Some of us are running to LOSE THE WEIGHT so please, do us women a favour and create some designs that might fit real people.