Shopping is one of the most liberating experiences a teenage girl can experience. After hoarding cash for a solid month, shoppers deserve to go out and spend a little. Finding the perfect outfit to blow 30 bucks on is always a struggle, but nowadays the issue is growing.

The problem is this: retail clothing does not cater to real women. Houston-based Plunkett Research concluded that the average American woman is a size 14, and plus-sizes, often classified as 14 to 34, account for 67 percent of the population.

Why, then, would retail stores all over the country sell clothing made to fit less than half the population? Why would they exclude 67 percent of the buyers in America?

Walk into any store in any mall. Hollister, Aeropostale, American Eagle, etc. Look at the sizes. Finding sizes over 10 is hard enough, but trying to find cute clothes in those larger sizes? Nearly impossible. Some stores do have plus sized sections, but they are small and limited in choices. Forever 21 has 2 floors in the Towson Mall, but only designates a small corner for larger shoppers.

Creating, marketing, and selling clothing is suppose to be geared towards pleasing the consumer, but more often than not companies create items that fit the proper “image” or “style.” Regardless of the facts, retailers design to fit models on the runway. The majority of Americans do not look like those models, and consequently those clothes only fit and flatter a small portion of a very large and diverse consumer crowd.

Clothing designed for sizes 2-8 may not look as great for those who wear larger sizes. Plus-sized clothing should compliment and empower the wearer, accentuating their curves and bringing confidence with the style. Sadly, designing fashion for larger men and women doesn’t seem to be desirable.

Refusal to design plus-sized clothing is a reflection on the idea of beauty and America’s attitude on weight. Despite the reality that the average American is growing in size, many are stuck in the archaic mindset that thin equals beauty.

According to cdc.gov, more than one-third (34.9% or 78.6 million) of U.S. adults are obese. Clearly the market for plus-sized clothing is big. It doesn’t make sense that designers and retailers would refuse to design for these people. Weight should not dictate where someone can or can not shop.

CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch Mike Jeffries had an interview with Salon in which he blatantly attacked plus sized shoppers.

“That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that,” Jeffries said. “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.”

People in the fashion industry such as Jeffries are so blindsided by their ignorance they can’t see the damage they are doing to shoppers’ confidence. Real women and men deserve a variety of shopping choices. The problem doesn’t have to do with weight, it has to do with a superficial mindset. The negative outlook on plus sized apparel is simply a way to degrade some parts of the population in order to celebrate others. All body sizes should be celebrated because beauty is a result of charisma and character, not looks alone. Perhaps the designers and retailers of this generation need to look in the mirror…what they see may not be so pretty after all.