Kathy Schofield has spoken out against her bullies, after she was harassed while exercising at Caroline Bay last Thursday.

A Waimate woman, who was fat shamed while working out at Caroline Bay last Thursday, has condemned her bullies for harassing a Leukaemia survivor.

Kathy Schofield was using the outdoor exercise equipment when she heard a group of people holler out a car window at her.

"They were shrieking with laughter, it just made me so angry. They have no idea what I've been through," Schofield said.

MYTCHALL BRANSGROVE/FAIRFAX NZ Kathy Schofield was using the exercise equipment at Caroline Bay when she says a group of people started harassing her from a passing car.

"I had a stroke a few years ago, I was ill for a really long time, having sort of episodes and I was misdiagnosed...for about 18 months before they (the hospital) discovered I had a rare form of leukaemia. I'm fat because I was on chemo. My fat is a side effect of me being alive."

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Later that day, she was harassed again in a Waimate supermarket carpark.

Furious, Schofield wrote a heartfelt message condemning her bullies which she posted on Facebook.

"Hey FAT SHAMERS...to the guys in the car at the supermarket making comments and vomiting noises when I walked past I want you to know something. IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU...

I take medication that makes me gain weight, gives me heart palpitations. I can't 'exert myself in case of further strokes.

I get mad that I am not fit anymore. I wish I could have my old body and life back...But I'm not really mad that I'm fat. It's a direct result of wanting to live... so I will keep struggling to exercise, and you can laugh all you like. I don't need to lose anything. I already won."

Massey University Senior Lecturer Dr Cat Pausé is a Fat Studies scholar and said fat shaming is common across the world.

"We live in an anti-fat culture - where fat shaming is encouraged by institutions such as government, media, public health, etc. In NZ, size is not protected under the law, so it is legal to discriminate against a person because of their size," Pausé said.

"Imagine two people telling their doctors that they have significant back pain. One receives an MRI and catches a tumour with time to treat it. The other is told that, of course their back hurts - they are carrying 'all that extra weight'."

Women's Health Action Trust director Julie Radford-Poupard said there is little support for people who have experienced fat-shaming.

"There's quite a bit of silence around it, we need more of a national conversation about it. We need to look at...having size in the Human Rights Act on a grounds of discrimination," Radford-Poupard said.

"We know that women, in particular, are not getting jobs, have issue finding housing and a whole raft of things because of their body size.

"People feel entitled to comment on other people's bodies and I'm not sure that they think about the consequences of that."

Schofield echoed those sentiments and said people should stop judging others.

"It's not that I got laughed at because I'm fat. I am fat. I got laughed at for something that was out of my control.

"You wouldn't laugh at someone who was bald because of chemo, it's just ridiculous because you've got no idea what's going on. I mean nobody has any right to comment on how someone looks or acts. It's nobody's business that I look the way I look."