A now-deleted tweet from Cosmopolitan magazine is leaving some social media users outraged.
On Tuesday, the magazine posted an article on Twitter about a 31-year-old Australian woman’s struggle with cancer, and how she eventually learned to love her body. But instead of focusing on her health, the magazine went with the following headline on social media zeroing in on her weight loss:
“How this woman lost 44 pounds without *any* exercise.”
Simone Harbinson, the Melbourne Instagram fitness blogger who was the topic of the article, was diagnosed with a severe kidney infection in 2014. Two weeks later, doctors told her she had tested positive for malignant carcinoid tumour of the appendix, a rare form of cancer.
READ MORE: Reality check: Is cancer a disease that strikes at random?
“I just collapsed when he told me the news,” Harbinson told the magazine. “So many emotions ran through me. I was shaking.”
After her diagnosis, the mother of two faced several other health scares, including a partially collapsed lung and internal leakage.
And although her professional life tends to focus on healthy eating and working out, the article also mentioned she lost 44 pounds without hitting the gym.
While Harbinson herself doesn’t say cancer led to her weight loss (she credits her eating habits), people were still not impressed with how the magazine handled the story’s headline on Twitter.
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Being called everything from “insane,” to “click bait” to “disgusting,” the magazine quickly deleted the tweet on the same day.
Some even shared their own struggles with the disease, the Washington Post notes.
Others are asking the magazine’s social media editor to be fired.
According to the Huffington Post, Harbinson went on Instagram on Monday thanking the magazine for writing her story, but since then she has deleted the post.
“That’s it. I’m done… I’m a feature in COSMOPOLITAN!!! WHAT?!!… This is a big one, sharing warts & all,” she wrote in the now-deleted Instagram post. “What an absolute honour, thank you.”
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The fitness blogger’s story has been picked up by several publications and, surprisingly, all have similar headlines and social media statuses.
One headline from Elite Daily read, “Mom Who Lost 44 Pounds Without Hitting Gym Says Simple Meal Prep Trick Was Key.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSk-WXKDmJN/?taken-by=simone_thebod
Another from the U.K.’s Daily Mail also pointed out the fact Harbinson didn’t go to the gym.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSaxoxyDrJv/?taken-by=simone_thebod
As of press time, the magazine has not made a comment on the controversy.
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