Throw Out Those Jeans

The word is spreading that buying jeans is stressful and we should not wear them if we are over 53 years old.  Well, that was so crazy I just had to look into it.

The first story I found came from a local TV station in Florida.  It said, “A new survey found some adults may be getting too old for jeans.”  Later they refer to the survey as a “study” adding, “the stress people experience while jean shopping is intense by age 53, with 6 percent becoming so upset they burst into tears.”  It also takes up to 8 days to find the perfect pair and “research showed women spend twice as long as men searching for the right fit.”  So in the course of the article, it has gone from a survey to a study to research, from asking people to fill out a questionnaire to scientists in lab coats with secret cameras or something.

Since it gave a link to the “new study” I thought I would go straight to the source.  The link connected me to the Daily Mail, a British Newspaper, and the article there was dated November 1, 2016 – hardly a new study.  That story told me that most people spend “up to five days looking for ideal fit” with a total average cost of over $45.  (I guess they weren’t talking about designer jeans or those trendy ones charging more for pre-worn holes.)  After all that work and expense of hunting for jeans, about one-quarter said they never found their ideal pair and almost one-third gave up looking.  Finally, the information did come from a survey, not a study, of 2000 people in England.

The Huffington Post picked up the story back in 2016 from the same Daily Mail article when it was still fresh.  They did point out, after complaining about the results, that it was “far from scientific.”  But they put an interesting spin on the information.  Despite the British newspaper having a picture of a man in jeans accompanying their piece, the Huffington Post headlines read:  “Most Annoying Study Reveals Age When Women Are Too Old For Jeans.”  (Giving some women another reason to feel victimized by society or science is a guaranteed winning headline.)

To add fuel to the fire, the Huffington article mentioned another survey putting the cutoff age at 47 based again on the opinions of another 2,000 Brits – unspecified as to whether that survey referred to men, women or both.

The same information was also presented on NBC’s Today show site just a couple of weeks ago, again as a new study, but most of their links took the reader to ads for jeans.

A takeaway should be that, despite what reporters seem to think, surveys are not the same as studies or research and deserve a lot less attention.  Even studies and research have their flaws and are very often published and reported long before we can put any faith in their findings.  This jeans survey may be a silly example, but it demonstrates how critical thinking and personal research can quickly get to the bottom of any news report on surveys, studies or research, especially ones pertaining to more serious subjects.

Another lesson is that Brits seem to obsess about how old is too old to be wearing jeans.  It’s a good thing Americans have a strong sense of perspective.  They aren’t so superficial as to get caught up in trivial subjects, stressing out over the “ideal” pair of jeans with the “perfect fit,” the pressure sometimes driving them to tears – or are they?