Tall people can't dress!

France's almost two million tall people cannot find shoes big enough or pants long enough, let alone buy a fitted shirt that hugs the body where it is supposed to.

"Sleeves are always too short, women's waistbands are in the wrong place and you can never find shoes," Didier Mattiuzzi, who heads an association of tall people called Altitudes, said at a media conference on Tuesday.

"We are lobbying for help for tall people," said the willow-like Mattiuzzi, a slim 191 centimetres (almost six foot four) tall.

Tall people invariably had cold feet and cold shoulders in short beds, he said.

But the situation was even worse in hospitals, where stretchers as well as hospital lifts also were too short, forcing the sick to have to sit up to be wheeled to a ward. But operating tables nowadays had extensions, Mattiuzzi said.

Car roofs were too low, shower cords too short, baths never long enough and drivers forced to stick a leg each side of a steering wheel. "Tall people even have to sit on the passenger seat of scooters", he added.

"Some big companies are taking us seriously now and listening," he said.

Patrick Robinet, of the French Textile and Clothing Industry (IFTH), said the situation for the very tall or very heavy could improve at year's end when European nations examine how to streamline sizes on the basis of national sizing campaigns held in the different countries.

According to the IFTH, which carried out a two-year national sizing campaign, a total 4.26 percent of French men are over 190 centimetres tall (six-foot three) while 1.28 percent of French women are more than 180 centimetres (six-foot).

That makes for a potential market of tall people of 1.7 million.

Shoe sizes for such people are four more than the average, said Robinet, who headed France's sizing campaign. But head sizes do not vary.

There were no more obese or overweight people among tall people however than among shorter ones, he said.

The campaign, which sized more than 11 000 people using 3-D machines that provide 85 different measurements, showed the French had grown bigger and heavier over 30 years.

In 2006, the average French woman was 162.5 centimetres tall (five-foot four) for 62.4 kilos in 2006, and the average man measured 175.6 centimetres (almost five foot nine) for 77.5 kilos.

That left the French way behind Croatians, where women on average are 174 centimetres tall and average men 185, Robinet said.

Of the few nations to have sized up their population, Croatians were the tallest, he said, followed by The Netherlands (170 cms and 181.9 cms), Sweden (167.2 cms and 180.9 cms), Belgium (164.6 cms and 176.6 cms) and Britain 163 cms and 177 cms).

AFP