WE often hear “inspirational” tales of women who have managed to lose weight.

Women who have been unhappy with their appearance and through hard work, determination (and let’s face it, sometimes surgery) they’ve managed to shed half their body weight and are spruiking their new look — often with a proud bikini selfie.

But some women choose to shun the pressure to lose weight and instead embrace the bulge and use it to make money — because they know that some people have a fetish for bigger women.

The documentary at the top of this post, Fat for Ca$h, tells the story of three women from different towns in America who are cashing in on their extra kilos. These overweight entrepreneurs are making big bucks through pay-per-view web modelling, super-size pole dancing and private one-on-one “squashing sessions”.

Jennifer Bennett, 31, is one such woman who counts cash instead of calories.

The Boston resident is a professional super-size web model who has been overweight her whole life. While other teens struggled to shed weight, Jen found she was the opposite.

“From an early age I was always interested with the idea of being big and round,” she explains. “I used to stuff pillows up my T-shirt to make me bigger, and roll around”.

She is now over 190kg and describes herself as a “gainer” — someone who deliberately overeats to pile on the pounds in a practice that is called “stuffing”. She has put on 45kg over the past 13 years.

She films herself eating calorie-laden treats in skimpy clothing and posts the clips online. She also films her monthly weigh-in on special scales made for heavy people as she says “to guys, having a number to put to a picture is important”.

She is not worried about the impact on her health.

“I recently went to the doctor and I got a clean bill of health — if it becomes an issue in the future then I’ll evaluate it then, but I’ve always lived my life in the now,” she says.

Jen also makes money from “squashing sessions”.

Alain, a “fat enthusiast” who likes the sensation of being squashed, comes around to her house and lays on a specially reinforced bed while Jen sits on him. If he gets to the point where he can’t breathe, he signals that she needs to get off by tapping on her.

Another star of the documentary is Christina Paez, a 280kg mother-of-three from Oregon. She’d been living on a disability pension and wanting to make more money to support her family.

After posting some photos on Facebook she discovered a community of people who liked big girls, and her online persona Sinfully Devine was born.

A fat enthusiast’ and video producer named Scott befriended her — now they’re building up a web page of Christina’s modelling shots. They tested the water (so to speak) by filming a video of Christina laying in a kiddie pool on her back veranda.

The film also introduces us to Christina’s mother Cindy who used to be the same weight as her daughter. When Cindy’s obesity caused health problems she had gastric band surgery and says that she is alive today because of that surgery.

She blames herself for her daughter’s size.

“You’re working jobs and you’ve got four kids … It was easier to stop and get dollar hamburgers than cook food.

“I actually believe I poisoned my own children with this [type of] food. My greatest fear is I am going to get well and my children are going to die”.

But despite the pleas of her mother (and 18 year old daughter Ruby, who is sick of having to take care of her mum and younger brother), Christina refuses to look into the surgery for herself — because of some of the complications her mother had.

We also meet some of the men who are turned on by larger women.

One man says that truly large women are hard to find, which makes them unique, and “I like things that are exotic and rare”.

Another admires the fact that the ladies are flying in the face of conventional beauty.

“Everyone’s trying to lose weight, but these girls are comfortable with who they are,” says one man out the front of Las Vegas’ plus-size strip night, Thick Sundaes.

“If you like a**, they got more. If you like breasts, they got more.”