Waist

Wasp-waisted Barbie, she of the anatomically impossible contours, is irreverently lampooned in Rebecca Hughes' "Plastica Fantastica" at the Actors' Gang El Centro. (In the play, the pouty protagonist's name is 'B***ie'--the asterisks evidently intended to forestall legal action from M***el). Let's not ponder too closely the point that, whereas little boys have action figures, little girls have . . . well, Barbie.

IS THERE A MOTHER anywhere in the United States who has not had an argument with her daughter over a waistband -- or rather, the lack of one? A walk down any retailer's aisle presents an array of jeans that come to a screeching halt a full latitude shy of the waist. They seem to defy the laws of gravity, except when they don't, and we're treated to more information about a stranger's taste in underwear -- brand, color and size -- than we might have wanted to know.

Unless you are a contortionist, the back is one of those areas that needs someone else's help when it comes to detailed skin care. The best I can do is clean my back with a bristly brush, but moisturizing the entire back is impossible. So, I walked into a full-service skin care salon in the Marina and requested a "back facial." I was introduced to an aesthetician, Carol, who led me into a small room, dark and quiet except for unobtrusive instrumental music in the background. I was instructed to disrobe, take off jewelry from the neck up, and lie face down on the bed. Carol handed over some bobby pins to catch stray hairs that would be in her way. I'd just had time enough to settle in and feel the clean sheets when Carol tapped on the door and came back in. She placed a blanket over me from the waist down and asked if I were comfortable; then she studied my back.

On any given day, in downtown lofts, Santa Monica ateliers and dozens of studios across Los Angeles, dressing rooms are filled with men and women who are slipping into suits, dresses and jeans that fit as if they were made just for them — because they were. They are donning custom-made wedding gowns, dress shirts, even entire wardrobes. Whether they were propelled there by the frustrations of poorly fitting commercial clothes or by a sense of style that isn't part of the trend du jour, they've discovered the rewards of made-to-order clothing.

Custom-made men's dress shirts were once considered the privileged peacockery of the moneyed set -- a dash of sartorial swagger that could be afforded only by Hollywood A-listers, Wall Street bankers and monocle-wearing aristocrats of a bygone era. But today, thanks to advances in technology, a competitive market and consumer demand, custom clothing has moved within the barrel-cuffed arm's reach of the common man. Click a button in Burbank and...

When it comes to shopping, the average American man has it made. At 189.8 pounds and a size 44 regular jacket, he can wear Abercrombie & Fitch, American Apparel or Armani. Department stores, mall retailers and designer boutiques all cater to his physique -- even when it's saddled with love handles, a sagging chest or a moderate paunch. In menswear, shlubby is accommodated. But the average U.S. woman, who's 162.

When I discovered I was pregnant with our second child, I pulled out the storage bin containing the maternity clothes from my first pregnancy and was instantly depressed. After nine months of wearing a Diane von Furstenberg maternity wrap dress and Lilly Pulitzer maternity shift in heavy rotation — and I mean heavy in every sense — I couldn't face another pregnancy in these same few outfits. But at $300 for designer maternity dresses I would wear another half a year at most, I wasn't prepared to splurge on an entirely new pregnancy wardrobe.

Shopping for underwear sounds either mundane or glamorous, depending on your point of view -- but it can also be daunting. "People have no idea what they're doing," said Bonnie Kaufman, "because it's like buying a mattress. What do you really know about mattresses?" Kaufman, the president and founder of the Creative Woman: The Wizard of Bras boutique in Monrovia -- which stocks 49 brands of brassieres -- is talking about women and bra shopping. More specifically, she's calling out the sorry state of sagginess that exists in the average American woman's bra wardrobe.

For some people, no amount of sunscreen feels like enough protection from harmful ultraviolet rays. So when they're ready to hit the shore, they can slip into a long-sleeved, thigh-length Sarasota ZnO Beach cover-up ($68) and matching full-length ZnO Beach drawstring pants ($54) from Coolibar, a Minneapolis-based maker of "sun protective clothes. " Or, if they actually want to go in the water, Sun Precautions of Seattle offers a high-neck, long-sleeved swim top ($98.95) and waist-to-ankle "water legs" ($82.95)

Want to gauge your risk for developing Type 2 diabetes? Don't just step on the scale - reach for a measuring tape too, a new study suggests. The circumference of your waist can tell you a lot about your chances of getting diabetes, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal PLoS Medicine . Health providers usually rely on body mass index to determine patients' diabetes risk, but adding waist circumference to the equation would...