Marie Southard Ospina

After discovering the worlds of plus-size fashion blogging and fat liberation advocacy in 2012, I began taking steps to reclaim my own fat body, one of whi

“How are you?” I texted a friend a few weeks into the UK’s lockdown. When we last chatted, she (a social butterfly by nature) had been strugg

When it comes to dating, I was something of a late bloomer. Around the time my friends started losing their virginities and acquiring partners, I alternate

“I never used to let my daughters play with that stuff,” my neighbour, a pixie-like 69-year-old woman with an eccentric mop of curly grey hair,

I was 21 years old when my mother bought me my first suit. The matching skirt and blazer were houndstooth print, terribly ill-fitting on my plus-size body

I saw them before they saw me. As I made my way across the street to the local Co-op, I watched as one of the boys elbowed a mate and pointed in my directi

When I first saw my cousin after chopping my very long, curly hair from bum-length into a short back and sides, she said she wasn’t surprised I had done

I had three best friends throughout most of school, all of whom were thin. Like most teenagers in our tiny suburban town, their favourite thing to do on we