B&M stores are selling pro-anorexia bathroom scales

[CathyLewis]

www.buzzfeed.com/harrietclugston/people-are-furious-with-bm-for-selling-pro-anore-276ck

Please tweet/write to them if you feel this is an irresponsible message.

[Newes]

I think variations of that motto are probably already well embedded in your psyche if you have an eating disorder. It's a bit naff but it won't push anyone down that route unless the complex reasons behind anorexia aren't already in place.

Don't see why Kate Moss gets all the flak for it either - Steve Tyler has said it too, possibly before her.

[OurBlanche]

Nope! Shan't be tweeting or writing. Variations of that motto are on fridges all over the world. Triggers for eating disorders are much more complex than that!

[frikadela01]

I've seen this motto for years all over my Facebook and it's always on the walls of people who are generally overweight and are in their latest diet. My slimming world consultant had it on her tshirt.
I guess what I'm saying is that to some people it may be a proanorexia message but to a whole section of other people it's a motto they use as inspiration to lose weight when they actually needs to.

[hownottofuckup]

I think people are getting a bit carried away with themselves tbh. I won't be tweeting.

[Buckinbronco]

How is this pro anorexia? This used to be a weight watcher motto.

Why does something about losing weight have to be about anorexia? The person who tweeted in the article must be pretty self obsessed

[DayToDayGlobalShit]

no. if you have scales, you are already concerned about weight.

[CathyLewis]

The phrase in question is a Kate Moss quote from 2009. It has always been associated with the unhealthy body image from the world of fashion. Kate Moss is basically the originator of 'heroine chic', so this phrase, which she said was the motto she lives by, has an explicit connection to size 0 beauty standards. Back in 2009 it and she were roundly criticized by mental health charities and eating disorder organisations for encouraging an unhealthy relationship with food, particularly among young girls.

[Newes]

A quick Google confirms that Weight Watchers used it first, then Steve Tyler, then Kate Moss.
It had been around a while before she was attacked for repeating it.

Do you know anything about the complex issues behind anorexia? It is not as simple as copying Kate Moss and 'heroin chic'.

[OurBlanche]

Yeah yeah! We all know that, it has been said / referred to upthread.

But it as not always been associated with the unhealthy body image from the world of fashion Kate Moss read it in a book, a collection of short stories by Elsa Berg, that pondered and celebrated small acts of 'feminist rebellion', published the year before Moss said it.

I'd lay good money that she, Moss, had read the book, or heard the saying in much the same way Berg had... all over the place, wherever you see a fat woman you will hear a woman try a version of that to resist the lure of a favourite food, an extra mouthful.

Using flippant mottoes to try and lose weight it not the same as promoting anorexia. To suggest it is remains the height/weight of hubris as it consigns all the complexities of eating disorders to simplistic nonsense.

[Newes]

Raj said 'A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips' the other day on The Big Bang Theory. Should that be banned too?

[Buckinbronco]

Kate moss is not an originator of "heroin chic" no model is. Although it was closely associated with Gemma Kid. They are hired and styled by editors and companies to advertise. Kate moss was just a skinny 15 year old who somehow ended up responsible for "heroin chic" (which isn't even a thing)

[OurBlanche]

I'd have thought there were some Victorian poets who were the originators of heroin chic.... such tragic, beautiful youth are not new, Waugh, Wilde and many others

[thedevilinmyshoes]

I only know that slogan as a pro-ana thing but it doesn't surprise me that it's also used in mainstream dieting which is often even worse.

[Buckinbronco]

The pro Ana movement is relatively new- I seem to recall it hitting in 2005 ish. It was used by weight watchers in the 70s

[OurBlanche]

Something like it was used in the 50s... maybe Lucille Ball?

[Buckinbronco]

Yes that rings a bell

[thatcoldfeeling]

VERY pro-Ana phrase, all over Tumblr memes etc. Not wrong in that it will trigger a non ED'd person, but wrong given the strong pro-Ana association that to me it feels a bit like marketing targeted at ED sufferers.

[raspberrysuicide]

Quite apart from anything else it doesn't even.

[PersianCatLady]

What would you rather do encourage obesity??

[BusterGonad]

They are stupid scales but I'm not going to complain, to be honest I doubt someone in the grips of anorexia would give 2 shits about the scales when there's millions of pro ana websites. Also OP wasn't Twiggy extremely thin decades before old Mossy, who gets all the flak for the wrongs in the world!

[insancerre]

Nobody would be diagnosed with anorexia after buying those scales
And if anorexics buy them then you can hardly blames the scales for the anorexia