Friday, March 29, 2024

Victoria business accused of body shaming after now-deleted Instagram post

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A local business usually known for its smoothies and salads gained notoriety for a much less healthy reason on Monday evening.

FreshCoast Health Food Bar’s mission, according to their website, is to provide the public with “fast, healthy, forward thinking food” so people can maintain a “balanced, nutritious diet and a clean conscience”.

However, after a Monday evening Instagram post that “conscience” aspect has been called into question.

Up for approximately two hours, the post (see above) depicts a sleeping man at Los Angeles International Airport.

The caption reads “#airportlife Get this man some @freshcoastvic we’re serious about providing healthy food to air travels across North America. If you feel the same then please “VOICE” your thoughts.”

Within minutes, the post started to receive negative feedback.

FreshCoast fat shaming
The comment section of FreshCoast’s post (now-deleted) – Screenshot by Ellie Wilson

However, FreshCoast didn’t delete the post until almost three hours later. Given their tagged location, that’s likely due to being on a flight.

Hundreds Of Negative Reviews Overnight

The backlash soon spread to their Facebook page in the form of numerous negative reviews. The first came at around 10:30 pm and over a hundred have been added since.

“They publicly support fat shaming of people whom likely struggle with their health and self image (see @freshcoastvic on instagram). Unacceptable,” wrote Facebook user James Parry.

“Just NO. Fat shaming to promote your business is raunchy AF. Taking down the post in no way, shape or form amends the action, an apology is in order,” wrote Facebook user Kassie K. Price. 

UPDATE:

In an interview with Victoria Buzz, FreshCoast owner Josh Kalef apologized for the post.
“I understand that it was uncalled for and obviously insensitive,” said Kalef. “I can’t take back what I’ve done but I’m just apologizing for it.”
“Ultimately what I was referring to was I was in LAX yesterday and I was frustrated by the lack of – it was a pretty extreme photo – but what I was trying to get at was the lack of options for healthy eating,” said Kalef.
“I’m not here to put people down,” he added. “It was a bad choice.”
Kalef also briefly posted an apology video regarding the incident on Instagram. He said he took it down as he’d rather apologize through conversations with media.
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Alistair Ogden
Former staff writer at Victoria Buzz.

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