Not everyone is receptive to Leanne’s online tips to help plus-sized travellers bag more space (by looking for “neighbour-free” and “customer of size” policies on airlines, for example). “Why can I only take 23kg of hold luggage but if I weigh 120kg I can get a free seat and also the luggage allowance?” moans one commenter called Alan beneath one of Leanne’s Instagram posts. But for Leanne, the joy of helping plus-sized travellers experience the world for the first time eclipses a world of Alans. “I see people come out of their shells and do things they couldn’t do if they weren’t travelling with other plus-sized people, such as wearing a bikini to a beach club,” she says.
Halfway through the first episode of Around the World in 80 Weighs, Russell crumples into tears as he gazes out over a landscape of lush rice paddies. He admits he’s come on the show in memory of his father, a jolly and obese pub landlord who died suddenly of a heart attack when Russell was just 19.
Russell and his wife Marisa are desperate to lose weight, he confides, so they can have their own children. The moment is a touching reminder of the life changes that can be wrought in all of us by the open skies and broadened perspectives of travel, but alas Around the World in 80 Weighs is no Eat, Pray, Love for overweight Britain.
Or as Leanne puts it: “Let’s forget about all the shaming, shall we, and just be a little bit nicer to the plus-sized person sitting next to us on an aeroplane.”
Around the World in 80 Weighs airs on Channel 4 at 9pm on Tuesdays and can be watched in full from February on All 4
