Apparently UK women are the biggest in Europe, but while being healthy is important, isn’t it about time the fashion industry – including high street shops – caught up with the demand for fashionable clothes for plus sized women?

That’s what the Channel 4 documentary Plus Sized Wars wanted to challenge, as we met bloggers and their followers, as well as modelling agencies adapting (well, slowly) to the reality that many girls just don’t relate to a size 8 model – or a ‘plus size’ 14-16 for that matter.

Plus Sized Wars
(Channel 4/YouTube)

1. Girls over a certain size just don’t have the same fashion choices as everyone else. 

Online retailers like Simply Be have created a more open market but on the high street there are limited stores catering for plus sized women, Evans and Yours are probably the only ones most people have heard of.

2. Plus sized fashion bloggers get huge numbers of readers and followers on Instagram. 

Plus sized wars
(Channel 4/YouTube/Screenshot)

We met Callie Thorpe, Georgina Horne, Danielle Vanier and Bethany Rutter who have over half a million followers between them.

The plus sized girls have created spaces on the internet where other people – particularly young women – the same size can share how they feel and be inspired by their body confidence.

3. So are they changing perceptions of what’s considered ‘beautiful’?  

 4. Can Evans shake off that outdated frumpy image?

Evans – the plus sized leader – are struggling to change what many people think of them, and are trying desperately to appeal to the younger market.

5. Some people have a problem with the promotion of bigger girls who are comfortable in their own skin though, asking if it was normalising obesity. 

6. And were there double standards? 

7. One thing was for sure though, viewer confidence was through the roof. 

8. But when it comes to modelling agencies hiring plus sized models, questions were asked about what the “acceptable face of fat” was. 

At first Milk only seemed to consider women sizes 14 to 16, above 5ft 7 with a perfect hour glass figure. Which of course isn’t what most plus sized women can relate to.

9. And they still picked apart little details, with everything from noses, to eye brows and height being scrutinised. 

10.  Then we saw Georgina was vilified by some of her followers for trying to loose a bit of weight for her wedding.

It seemed some felt betrayed because she’d built up a following on being comfortable the size she was, then tried to change.

11. Tess Munster (aka Tess Holliday) is literally a hero to many people worldwide. 

At 5ft 5, size 24, she doesn’t fit the normal realms of what a plus sized model is. But with 35,300 followers on Twitter and over 62,000 on Instagram, the American is a bit of a phenomenon.

And as Milk soon realised, a money-making one at that. And they signed her to their books

12. Tess and the other bloggers really made everyone feel great about themselves.

But we’ll leave you with these thoughts…