Changing perceptions of plus-sized swimmers

Rowan Clarke meets the photographer whose images of fat swimmers are changing perceptions

When you search Google Images for ‘wild swimmers’, points out photographer Antonina Mamzenko, your browser is filled with images of thin, young, white women leaping into water. These images are idealised. Beautiful swim spots, beautiful people, elements that fit the popularised term ‘wild swimming’ and everything it evokes.

But it does it fit with the reality of outdoor swimming as a sport for all, an activity that brings huge health and wellbeing benefits regardless of age or body type? As a keen outdoor swimmer and photographer, Antonina understands the power of visual representation, how liberating it is to float in the sea and how it is to be made to feel unwelcome because of body shape and size.

Limited options

“There’s a company that rents out wetsuits – you can send them your measurements,” says Antonina, whose photography project around swimmers in larger bodies was kicked off by her struggle to find a swimming wetsuit that fitted. “They picked one for me and it was a men’s wetsuit. Not that I mind, but equally like, why? So, I had a conversation with the women who run the renting place and they said that they speak to companies all the time asking for bigger sizes for women in particular, and some of them literally said that fat people don’t swim.”

Fat people don’t swim. This assertion is not only wrong, it’s also hugely damaging for a number of reasons. For a start, it perpetuates practical and emotional barriers to an activity that’s not only joyful but also improves mental and physical health.

“When the average person who just wants to swim goes to a high street store and they can’t find anything, then that stops you. It’s a vicious cycle, isn’t it? It feeds your self-consciousness. With me, it was like, I can’t find anything and therefore I must be wrong; the problem is me,” says Antonina. “I know how women feel. There’s this thing around having a beach body and losing weight and there’s so much oppression. Women don’t even play with their kids on the beach because they feel so self-conscious. It’s perpetuating this myth that you have to have a certain kind of body to be able to enjoy water activities.”

Changing the narrative

Antonina decided to use her skills as a photographer to help change this narrative. Through her photography, she aims to encourage people who identify as fat or plus-size to try swimming outdoors using the psychological concept of ‘like attracts like’ where people see others who look like them and that encourages them, often sub-consciously, to take part.

“I don’t want anyone to not get in the water because they feel self-conscious about their body,” she says. “I want to have that representation and have the visuals of women of different sizes.”

It seems extraordinary that we’re still having this conversation in 2023 and around an activity as inclusive as outdoor swimming. But the idealisation of thin bodies and the assumption that fat people wouldn’t want to wear wetsuits or swimwear is still hugely problematic. For example, an ice-miler recently expressed dismay about comments that she was brave to step out in swimwear, and that it was great to see someone of her size achieving athletic goals.

“I think it’s such an insidious message that if you’re a certain type of body, you shouldn’t be seen on a beach or at a pool,” says Antonina. “On a logical level, swimmers understand that there’s nothing wrong with any shape orsize. But, even though they’re really good swimmers and love swimming, there’s something ingrained in us as women that makes us feel like we need to apologise for our bodies.”

Spreading the joy

The reality that Antonina is striving to portray is that people of any size and shape can reap the benefits of swimming outdoors. And, by capturing the joy of being in open water, she hopes to encourage others to take the plunge.

“One woman I photographed said it took her a year to gather the courage to join a local group because she felt like she was too big to swim. And then, after a while she said she felt less self-conscious and is much happier in her own body,” says Antonina. “Another woman said something amazing about how she feels her fatness is much more visible when she is out and about in normal clothes. And then, when she’s in the water she feels bulletproof; she’s wearing next to nothing, but she is completely free and confident.”

Antonina strongly believes that changing perceptions of fatness as lazy or unhealthy is beneficial for everyone.

“You feel part of the community if you see others. I think that’s where representation really matters. We want to show women in positions of power so that little girls can get inspired and become prime ministers or directors of companies. And it’s the same with other kinds of representation including bigger bodies,” she says. “Because if you see it in the media, you see it in magazines, you see it on Google Images, you will start accepting it as normal and you’re just part of a wide gamut of human bodies. I just want to build women’s self-esteem. We exist, we swim, and we’re happy.”

If you identify as a fat or plus-sized swimmer and would like to take part in Antonina’s project, email her: hello@mamzennko.com or go to mamzenko.com

Read our guide to how to overcome your self-consciousness when outdoor swimming.