A consumer-generated image of a plus-sized woman posted to Abercrombie & Fitch's social media account ignited a debate on whether the retail company was "normalizing" obesity and unhealthy eating habits in the name of body diversity and inclusion.
The image was initially posted last week on the company's official Instagram account and went viral over the weekend, with Twitter commenters offering overwhelmingly negative reactions.
"New Abercrombie & Fitch ad just dropped.... This season they are featuring diabetes and heart attacks," tweeted Natalie Danelishen.
"She has a pretty face, too bad society told her not only was it healthy to look like this but it was also brave and empowering," wrote another Twitter user.
The company said the image was not an ad.
"Abercrombie is often tagged by our customers on social media and we love to celebrate them by reposting their images to our channels," a company spokesperson told The Post on Monday. "This is one of those occasions."
Some Twitter users defended the posting, with one commenting: “Making clothes for people who are obese is a bad thing now?”
“No,” responded one Twitter user. “But Selling obesity as sexy/ attractive is counterproductive to the medical advisors selling obesity as extremely unhealthy.”
“And if it’s not unhealthy why don’t McDonalds, KFC etc use obese people in ads? Probably because it’s not attractive enough to be assoc. w/food.”
One Twitter user accused Abercrombie of promoting health maladies.
Fashion retailers such as Abercrombie and Victoria's Secret have sought to appeal to a mass audience by eschewing advertising campaigns that have traditionally and exclusively featured thin models in favor of promotional content that touts body diversity and "body positivity."
The use of skinny models by the fashion industry sparked accusations that it was encouraging young girls and women to adopt unhealthy eating habits in pursuit of an unrealistic body type.
But critics now say that the industry is swinging too far in the other direction by featuring plus-size models.
In 2003, Abercrombie was sued by 250,000 employees who allege they were discriminated against by being forced to work in stock rooms out of view of the public while sales jobs went to those who had the "look" prized by the company.
The company, which has traditionally marketed to predominantly white college-age kids, agreed to pay $40 million to settle the class-action lawsuit.
The United States has among the highest obesity rates in the developed world. Excess weight is though to be a leading contributor to health maladies including heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, and diabetes.
Earlier this month, Bill Maher devoted a segment of his popular weekly HBO talk show "Real Time with Bill Maher" to what he called America's transition from "fat acceptance" to "fat celebration."
https://x.com/billmaher/status/1555772246278299649
Maher said it was “disturbing” and “Orwellian” for people to disregard obesity as a health hazard.
He accused American thought leaders of “rewriting science to fit ideology to just fit what you want reality to be.”
“We’ve gone from fat acceptance to fat celebration. That’s new. That is new,” Maher said on his Aug. 5 broadcast.
“To view letting yourself go as a point of pride? We used to at least try and be fit and healthy and society praised those who succeeded.”
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My god she is fricking huge. Why would a company want to advertise someone who is like 50% gunt. Like shes almost not even humanoid anymore
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I can't off the top of my head think of a single example of this sort of "body positivity" marketing that features an obese male. What do they mean by this?
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Men cope with being fat by laughing at themselves. Unfortunately, women have no sense of humor and must seek different ways of coping - like bullying everyone around them into saying their huge gut is totally sexy.
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Everything must cater to them or its literally genocide.
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I don't blame Abercrombie, this is the future for all burger woman, Imagine if they didn't shed their image of clothes for normal sized people, 5 years in they'll be out of a business
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Yeah, but look at all that flesh! Imagine the power we’d get if we burned her. I bet she’d power 100 homes
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This but with the homeless
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She actually would been Stacy if she was skinny
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Speak English motherlover
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Get a time machine neighbor
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My cheese grater. Your butt.
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Wow wow wow stop with sexual harassment
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smh fake strags
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A whale's money is as green as anyone else's. Greener really, after the sweat soaks in.
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Fit people can buy more clothes but fat people HAVE to or else everything in the closet is too small to wear
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Honestly perfect consoomer right there. continually buying new clothes because her old ones "shrank" and having to buy bigger sizes which are more expensive and possibly harder to find.
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A tale as old as time
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A fat asian model would receive messages from her nosy relatives asking her why is she so fat the next day lmao
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Can asians even be fat?
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of course, i can't find the vice article where a fat singaporean was crying about fatphobic relatives so you'll have to do with this: https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/article/3145594/im-considered-huge-hong-kong-how-being-plus-size-model
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Your comment has been automatically identified as hate speech with the following parameters:
Reddit Inc would have spent 3.242 USD to moderate 47319 comments.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of /h/AgainstHateHoles if you have any questions or concerns. trans lives matter
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They're getting there the bug metabolism is slowly losing the fight
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Asian-Americans and their consequences have been a disaster on the mukbang race
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Literally a yellow fever super spreading event
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Oh yeah? Check the "sorry not beautiful" Jordan Peterson sneed post.
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They used to be so based
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They became irrelevant and now they're latching on Fat Acceptance as an American male latches onto the bucket of fried shrimps at an all you can eat buffet
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They've been taking down chud fashion CEOs for years
https://www.thecut.com/2013/12/sad-lululemon-founder-steps-down.html
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when you can see the gunt through the jean shorts
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The clothes don't even fit her, if you're going to push obesity maybe get them clothes that fit
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Nice bu......
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I legit don't know how she'll get in our out of these clothes, lol
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Just feed her until she outgrows them.
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Absolutely fricking repulsive. Imagine having a body like that at her age.
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An actual front bottom.
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9 years ago the same people were seething at the same company for no fats allowed. Of all the companies availble to play the "normalizing obesity" angle, they pick the one whose CEO has been quoted saying they don't want fat people to wear their clothes.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/fat-or-ugly-abercrombie-fitch-doesnt-want-you/article11853840/
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Hogs are invasive, gotta round em up!
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Snapshots:
https://web.archive.org/https://nypost.com/2022/08/29/abercrombie-deletes-ad-after-fury-over-normalizing-obesity
https://archive.ph/?url=https://nypost.com/2022/08/29/abercrombie-deletes-ad-after-fury-over-normalizing-obesity&run=1 (click to archive)
https://ghostarchive.org/search?term=https://nypost.com/2022/08/29/abercrombie-deletes-ad-after-fury-over-normalizing-obesity (click to archive)
https://web.archive.org/https://i.rdrama.net/images/16841298517395253.webp
https://archive.ph/?url=https://i.imgur.com/oJAGF7u_d.webp?maxwidth=9999&fidelity=high&run=1 (click to archive)
https://ghostarchive.org/search?term=https://i.imgur.com/oJAGF7u_d.webp?maxwidth=9999&fidelity=high (click to archive)
https://web.archive.org/https://i.rdrama.net/images/16841298524467247.webp
https://archive.ph/?url=https://i.imgur.com/pLs6EIz_d.webp?maxwidth=9999&fidelity=high&run=1 (click to archive)
https://ghostarchive.org/search?term=https://i.imgur.com/pLs6EIz_d.webp?maxwidth=9999&fidelity=high (click to archive)
https://web.archive.org/https://i.rdrama.net/images/16841298536515543.webp
https://archive.ph/?url=https://i.imgur.com/Ps0J4eY_d.webp?maxwidth=9999&fidelity=high&run=1 (click to archive)
https://ghostarchive.org/search?term=https://i.imgur.com/Ps0J4eY_d.webp?maxwidth=9999&fidelity=high (click to archive)
promotional content that touts body diversity and "body positivity.":
https://web.archive.org/https://nypost.com/2022/08/08/plus-size-models-are-driving-a-new-plastic-surgery-trend-study/
https://archive.ph/?url=https://nypost.com/2022/08/08/plus-size-models-are-driving-a-new-plastic-surgery-trend-study/&run=1 (click to archive)
https://ghostarchive.org/search?term=https://nypost.com/2022/08/08/plus-size-models-are-driving-a-new-plastic-surgery-trend-study/ (click to archive)
young girls and women to adopt unhealthy eating habits:
https://web.archive.org/https://nypost.com/2017/02/08/models-tell-all-before-new-york-fashion-week/
https://archive.ph/?url=https://nypost.com/2017/02/08/models-tell-all-before-new-york-fashion-week/&run=1 (click to archive)
https://ghostarchive.org/search?term=https://nypost.com/2017/02/08/models-tell-all-before-new-york-fashion-week/ (click to archive)
swinging too far in the other direction:
https://web.archive.org/https://nypost.com/2022/08/16/woman-sparks-uproar-by-declaring-that-being-fat-is-not-beautiful/
https://archive.ph/?url=https://nypost.com/2022/08/16/woman-sparks-uproar-by-declaring-that-being-fat-is-not-beautiful/&run=1 (click to archive)
https://ghostarchive.org/search?term=https://nypost.com/2022/08/16/woman-sparks-uproar-by-declaring-that-being-fat-is-not-beautiful/ (click to archive)
among the highest obesity rates in the developed world:
https://web.archive.org/https://nypost.com/2022/08/15/cbs-pushes-study-blaming-climate-change-for-rising-childhood-obesity-rates/
https://archive.ph/?url=https://nypost.com/2022/08/15/cbs-pushes-study-blaming-climate-change-for-rising-childhood-obesity-rates/&run=1 (click to archive)
https://ghostarchive.org/search?term=https://nypost.com/2022/08/15/cbs-pushes-study-blaming-climate-change-for-rising-childhood-obesity-rates/ (click to archive)
https://x.com/billmaher/status/1555772246278299649:
https://web.archive.org/https://x.com/billmaher/status/1555772246278299649
https://archive.ph/?url=https://x.com/billmaher/status/1555772246278299649&run=1 (click to archive)
https://ghostarchive.org/search?term=https://x.com/billmaher/status/1555772246278299649 (click to archive)
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You said it, Snappy. Just can't do it anymore
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Do they tailor clothing to support a massive gut now? The punishment of obesity is to have ill-fitting clothes, not remake society in a lardly image
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In the future normal people will shop in small sized stores and every normal shop will be geared towards obese people
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now is the time to master making your own alterations on your clothes
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Maher repeatedly hits the nail on the head.
Fat acceptance is indeed an exceedingly disturbing and counter-productive campaign.
Why should we celebrate people who lack the impulse control, intelligence or common decency to not stuff themselves with as many calories as the laws of physics allow?
Why should we accept absolute drains on our society? They waste food by eating far more than their physical needs, they waste our medical resources with self inflicted health issues, they refuse to work, but will demand government assistance so they can buy more food to cram into their guts.
pic unrelated
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What's dangerous is that universities are allowing fat study/humanities faculties that perpetuate and promote medical misinformation and outright lies.
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it's only fat foids, cause foids are r-slurred and want to think nice things regardless of truth.
this is why we shouldn't let foids vote.
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One(1) token negro for their men(none fat) advertisement, good asian representation, zero indians(pakistani).
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https://x.com/billmaher/status/1555772246278299649
Americas greatest late night host!
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Clothing should charge by the stitch and fabric weight ngl, I'd like a discount for taking up fewer resources.
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I guess you could ask yourself: "would a company consider it appropriate to associate its brand with smoking, or heroin abuse, for example"? And of course the answer would be no, the mere presence of smoking even in movies now is considered problematic, but normalizing a condition that causes far more deaths per year than smoking and heroin combined is somehow brave and powerful and inclusive.
Frankly I don't care either way, if you decide what's right or wrong based on clothing retailer promotional material, you're r-slurred. But equal standards should apply.
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Ewwwwww
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This one might be too big for me, bois
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i like whales that wear abercrombie and fitch, id feed her if i had one dish
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The whole concept of “normalization” is incredibly selfish. You can’t accept that you’re a freak, so instead of becoming normal, you try to shift society’s standards so that you appear normal
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More like Abercrombie and Fatch
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Imagine showing off this hog at 4H.
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Hi
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Your comment has been automatically removed because you forgot to include
trans lives matter.Don't worry, we're here to help! We won't let you post or comment anything that doesn't express your love and acceptance towards the trans community. Feel free to resubmit your comment with
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Hi
@Goomble,
Your comment has been automatically removed because you forgot to include
trans lives matter.Don't worry, we're here to help! We won't let you post or comment anything that doesn't express your love and acceptance towards the trans community. Feel free to resubmit your comment with
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