Plus Size Paddler

The purpose of clothes is to fit our bodies, it’s not up to my body to change to fit the clothes!

This is true for everything we buy to wear, including kit and is at the root of my frustration about the lack of size inclusivity in Watersports. It reflects the society that we live in where diet culture rules, after all, imagine how many people would lose money if we all woke up one day and realised our bodies were perfectly fine how they are, thank you very much.

Accepting your body is something that is an act of rebellion in the society we live in.

The thing is, I’ve spent a lot of time working to accept myself before I even discovered SUP but paddling is what cemented it for me. My body is strong and healthy – I’m so grateful for that. Caring for myself became more important than ever, staying injury free so I could get on the water at every opportunity that I had.

I deserve to get the kit I need in this body, so do you!

And so #PaddleKitHerWay was born because we should not have to change to access a sport we love. We need kit to be safe on the water and everyone, every body deserves to buy kit that fits their body exactly how it is. Kit issues effect so many women and it’s time to change but that is worth a whole post of it’s own.

But what about being healthy, I hear some cry…
There is a growing body of evidence, showing diets don’t work, that BMI is a poor indicator of health status. Giving up on diets does not mean giving up on health. This is another subject which requires a post all to itself, where I can include the references and I promise that will come but for now maybe explore that thought. If you weren’t trying to shrink, what would you do – I remember a day when this thought was too much for me.

Now I have a so much more headspace, I can contemplate it and know I will work hard to campaign for change, more inclusive kit options and encouraging others to embrace themselves exactly how they are.

If you take anything from today’s ramble, please take this…
You are perfectly imperfect just the way you are – you don’t need to change anything!

There’s lots of ways I’d describe the paddle boarding community: inclusive, welcoming and wonderful. Like many others, I discovered the world of SUP this year as a perfect, socially distanced escape and way to spend time outdoors.

As a size 18 woman, only slightly larger than the average, which is a UK16, I thought it would be pretty simple, believing – like general fitness brands – sizing options would be inclusive in leading labels. What I discovered was the opposite – rather than being inclusive and reflecting the community, kit was exclusive.

Most of the leading paddling brands only went to a women’s UK16 or an XL, excluding all women above the UK average and making the only option men’s kit. This often doesn’t fit right, since it doesn’t account for women’s different body shapes or sizes – after all, it wasn’t designed for us.

This battle is not new to women who have been paddling for a while. They had to campaign just to get women’s kit in the first place, this is insane to me, it’s a patriarchal idea – women weren’t worthy of kit.

Now we have kit with sizing that works for very few women and I’ve found myself on a mission to change that.

What I want to achieve is simple…
No women will ever have to give up on a sport they love because they can’t get the kit they need, it’s not too much to ask for.

Immediately it caught the attention of women and brands alike and while many larger brands have given me lots of excuses but there are some phenomenal brands who want to be involved in changing the norm!

McConks were on board from Day 1, they launched a survey gathering data about women’s sizes. You can access it here if you have a couple of minutes and a tape measure.

Then many women fed back that it was too detailed and that it made them feel self conscious about themselves. So I came up with a simpler one, so everyone, no matter how they were feeling can fill it in anonymously.

Click here to complete the #PaddleKitHerWay Survey.

The campaign continues to grow, with a team of passionate women helping me take the reigns. These champions, from various disciplines, will help drive the campaign forward starting with a Facebook community – #PaddleKitHerWay Community. We hope this will become a community of like minded women and we can work together to get better kit options for us all, as well as increasing the accessibility of the sport for plus size women.

Join us on Facebook here.

There’s so much to come, there’s a long way to go but I’m sure together we can get the change we deserve.

I’ll be back with regular kit related updates!