Griffith woman Harriet Taylor caused a storm of controversy when she told The Area News on Wednesday she felt she was being punished for having a healthy lifestyle because she struggled to find clothes that fit her size-six frame.

Miss Taylor suggested instead of pandering to overweight people with plus-size stores and larger seats on planes, the government should do more to promote healthy eating and exercise.

But former Griffith’s Biggest Loser contestant and mum of four children and two foster children, Aimee Gibbs (pictured right), said there was far more to the debate than simply telling overweight people to eat healthily and exercise.

Since the competition in 2009, Mrs Gibbs has successfully shed 26 kilograms but said it has been a “long, hard road”.

She also battles metabolic syndrome – a condition that means she has no metabolism and has to take diabetic medication.

With six children to care for, Mrs Gibbs said finding time to plan meals and exercise can be difficult and she resented being criticised by somebody “who doesn’t understand what it is to be overweight”.

“How can you say people are happy being overweight?” Mrs Gibbs said. “I’ve been a size eight so I’ve been skinny and I’ve been big and it’s a hell of a lot harder being big.”

As for the government catering for overweight people, Mrs Gibbs questioned what Miss Taylor expected to happen.

“What do you want to do? To not let people who are obese travel?” she said. “When you walk into somewhere and you’re the biggest person there, you get stared at.”

And as for shopping, Mrs Gibbs said it was very difficult to find clothes that suited her figure, or were the correct size.

“It’s not easy for bigger people to go and buy clothes here at all but I do see a lot of small sizes,” Mrs Gibbs said. “I had a wedding recently and I could not buy a formal dress anywhere in town.”

“I don’t think you should label any size as healthy, there are a lot more factors to being healthy than what size clothes you wear.”