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Esquire: Your Pants Are Lying To You

Fashion retailers are always trying to get a leg up on the competition, but according to an Esquire investigation, many of America's biggest retailers are lying to consumers about waist sizes in order to make them feel thinner and more likely to buy their clothes.

The worst offenders?

Reporter Abram Sauer found a pair of Old Navy pants labeled as a 36 inch waist that were in fact 41 inches wide. A pair of 36 inch Dockers clocked in at 39.5 and Haggar and Gap were both selling 39 inch pants as 36.

As the author points out, bulging waist sizes are a big time concern.

Men with larger waists are twice as likely to die as their thinner comrades, according to a study published last month in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Check Esquire for the full list of offenders.

 (Copyright 2010 CBS Interactive.  All Rights Reserved.)

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