Ladies, it's time to pick up that broom and get moving.

On average, women's waist sizes have increased by 15.4 centimetres in the past 60 years, a British study has found.

Saga Services Limited studied 8000 men and women’s waist sizes, calorie intake and lifestyle at present and compared it to information from the year 1952.

Their results showed that in the 1952 a woman's waist was on average 71.12 centimetres wide while today, that average is 86.36 centimetres, indicating a significant increase.

Smaller waists in the 50s could be a result of constant physical activity through housework, rationing and girdles.

In the past, housewives burnt up to 1000 calories through daily chores which in part helped keep them slim and trim.

Coupled with war rationing — which was still in place in the 1950s — women ate less, consuming at most 1820 calories per day.

Women today consume just over 2100 calories daily, which is slightly more than the recommended daily allowance of 2000 calories.

And through the help of appliances and gadgets, housework has become a lot easier and quicker to do, meaning that women are not working up much of a sweat doing it.

The implosion of convenience foods, girdles falling out of fashion, and long working hours, the modern woman's waistline is in great danger.

"Nowadays you have to actually go to the gym to take exercise. My mum didn’t even have a car, she would have walked everywhere," said Dr Ros Altmann, Saga’s director-general.

"I think there’s some element with the availability of fast food but women in the 1950s would still have eaten chips and puddings. It seems to me that the physical activity demanded by keeping a home was ensuring women were fitter and thinner than they are today."