Mpho Matodzi (23), who was recently crowned Miss Limpopo Plus Size 2021 and announced as Miss Limpopo Plus Size Public Choice, infects everyone who comes close to her with her vitality.
"When people see a plus-size person, they quickly assume that he or she is sick and probably can't live long," she said. "It is the wrong mentality - petite women can also have high blood pressure."
A resident of Makonde and final-year student in media studies at the University of Venda, Mpho said that people should learn to love one another without first looking at their physique.
"Stop with the assumptions. We are very healthy and do not necessarily suffer from the health issues you assume we must have," she said. "I have always wanted to be a model and just couldn't achieve that dream at once, because pageants were only for petite women. So, I started modelling quite late."
She took part in the Miss Univen Thick Size in 2019, and was crowned Miss Personality. She further entered Miss Venda 2019/2020, where she was crowned Miss Venda Plus Size Public Choice and Miss Venda Plus Size Queen.
For Mpho, modelling means changing the perspective that people have towards plus sizes. "It is not wrong to be a plus size," she said. "What is wrong is what people say about plus sizes."
Mpho matriculated at the Mukula Integrated School. She said that winning the Miss Limpopo Plus Size pageant indicated that she should not only focus on Venda, since she already owned the title of Miss Venda Plus Size. "It tells me that I need to serve and reach out to the women of Limpopo at large," she said.
She motivates plus-size women and men to never let their size stop them from being anything they want to be in the world. "Go ahead and fetch your dreams," she said. She finds the way some plus-size people even forget how to love themselves properly because of the external pressure from social media sad.
"I want to be constantly reminding these young women that there is nothing wrong with them or with their bodies," she said. "They should love and embrace the blessing that God gave them – which is their ample bodies!"