Ajay Rochester outraged Aussie model Laura Wells labelled 'plus-size'
A former Biggest Loser host is outraged that a size 14 Aussie model has been labelled plus-size in a new fashion campaign.
Ajay Rochester slammed sportswear brand The Upside for including the title ‘plus size model and environmental activist’ beside model Laura Wells in their latest video.
Rochester, notorious for her own yo-yo dieting, posted to Instagram to vent her frustration.
“How the f*** can this woman be considered plus size? Any idea the kind of damage you do to the minds of young girls by even using those words with a picture like this? Where is there PLUS of anything. Anything less of her and she'd be a MINUS something. Seriously this is so ridiculous and harmful! This is not empowering anyone,” the 45-year-old wrote.
In the video, 29-year-old Wells admits to being unhappy with her body as a teen, and cutting the labels out from her clothes so people wouldn’t know she was a size 14.
The 29-year-old appears alongside David Jones ambassador Jessica Gomes, Ironwoman Courtney Hancock, ballet dancer Vivienne Wong and General Pants design director Pip Edwards in the video.
Rochester continued her Instagram tirade with another post, this time of her own bum.
It was captioned: “This is a "plus size" ass! My own! However I still don't understand why we need the word "plus" added to any description of anyone, least of all on fit girls who just aren't a size zero. This is MY ass. I love my butt! And despite what some hungry starving angry people might think, there are plenty of people who love THAT bottom just the way it is! The more we call someone quite small "plus size" the more we brainwash young girls into believing they will never be good enough or accepted as they are.”
Rochester isn't the only one to question the brand's labelling of Wells as plus-size.
The Huffington Post published an article titled 'Australian Plus Size Model Laura Wells Looks Stunning, But Not Exactly What We'd Call Plus Size'.
However, Wells backed up her title as a plus-size model on social media by posting a picture of her thighs and a traditional model's legs side-by-side.
"Work up this morning to tabloid media and quotes from @ajayrochester saying that I am not a plus size model and that I am not empowering anyone. Well this picture serves its purpose. Me on the right a size 14AU (12 US, 16UK) on the left a size 6AU model. Its obvious here the differences. I am a 'plus size MODEL' because I am 3-6 sizes larger then industry standard," she wrote.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the average Aussie woman is 161.8 cm tall and weighs 71.1 kg, which equates roughly to a size 14 to 16.