Kate O'C

I recently read an article about this woman (yes, it was on Buzzfeed. Yes, it counts).

Tess Holliday – instagram.com

Tess Holliday is a size 22 (UK) model, who is the first of her height (5’5″) and size to be signed to a major modelling agency. No matter who you are, or what your preferences, there’s no denying she is a very beautiful person. She has an appealing, symmetrical, feminine face. But there is also no getting around the fact that she is bigger than the average lady

I’ve been wanting to write a piece on plus-size women for a while, but haven’t been able to formulate an angle that allowed me to make the points I wanted to make, but I think now I’m going to give it a bash. I’m not about body-shaming and this isn’t about dictating rights and wrongs when it comes to body image, it’s about being both happy and healthy in one’s own skin.

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I never used to consider myself to be particularly sporty. I’d always participated in games lessons at school and in various teams – hell, at the age of ten, I captained my primary school cricket team in a local competition, having never played until two weeks previously, but that’s a different story. It wasn’t until I went to university, met a lot of people who did little to no team-based activity, and I took up Rugby Union, that I was labelled ‘Sporty’.

It’s not a label I’ve ever fully embraced or, frankly, understood. Sure, I exercise, I play sport, I get antsy if I’ve been sat down or stuck indoors for too long, but never crave a spot of pavement-pounding. Between you and me, exercise for its own sake is something I dread and (horror of horrors) find boring.

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