A Victoria author’s Tweet was featured in an NBC News article regarding accusations of Forever 21 body-shaming customers earlier this week.
On Wednesday, NBC reported a story of plus-sized Forever 21 customers receiving Atkins diet bars with their online clothing.
After one customer tweeted an image of the bar in their shipment order, many customers responded saying that they believed the promotion was in bad taste, and even harmful.
BUSINESS TIP: If you're selling a product geared to Fat people, probably best not to tell them that you want to eradicate fat bodies…
FYI we're not only fat, we're fierce too and you're not getting our money anymore! *cough* @forever21 *cough*https://t.co/87UmJ445QM
— Rebecca Sky | 🍉 CEASEFIRE NOW (@RebeccaSky) July 23, 2019
Featured in NBC’s article were the thoughts of local author Rebecca Zelinsky, whose Tweet was shared by the American news outlet.
According to Zelinsky, having an unexpected diet bar included with your clothing order can have damaging effects on mental health, regardless of size.
“I think it’s [awful] whether you’re a fat person or a thin person,” Zelinsky told Victoria Buzz.
“There’s a lot of people with eating disorders and even a small girl could have gotten one of those bars and it could have triggered anorexia or bulimia. It certainly affects the plus-sized customers.”
In response to the body shaming accusations, Forever 21 released a statement saying that they occasionally provide free products from third parties to their online orders, and that the bars were sent to a series of shipments of all sizes and categories.
“From time to time, Forever 21 surprises our customers with free test products from third parties in their e-commerce orders,” the clothing company said in a statement.
“This was an oversight on our part and we sincerely apologize for any offense this may have caused to our customers, as this was not our intention in any way.”
Forever 21’s free surprise diet bar promotion has since ended.
— Forever 21 (@Forever21) July 25, 2019
