American department store Macy’s has been criticised for selling plates encouraging people to eat small portions to get into their skinny jeans.
The range of plates feature three circles showing how much food you should eat – one is labelled ‘mom jeans’, one ‘favourite jeans’ and the smallest one as ‘skinny jeans’.
Another plate shows a big circle labelled as ‘food coma’ and the inside circle as ‘foodie’.
The plates were onsale at STORY at Macy’s – an instore concept shop – in their Manhattan flagship branch.
Podcast host Alie Ward posted a picture of the plates on Twitter and said: ‘How can I get these plates from Macy’s banned in all 50 states.’
People really weren’t happy with the design, saying it promoted eating disorders and body issues.
One person said: ‘Imagine thinking a circle labelled “skinny jeans” big enough to hold like two chicken nuggets is demonstrating “healthy portion control”…. The only thing it’s teaching is body shaming, and nothing to do with health.’
fixed them pic.twitter.com/Uqj68iwvYz
— Liz Climo (@elclimo) July 21, 2019
Another added: ‘This is a toxic message, promoting even greater women beauty standards and dangerous health habits. These expectations can actually kill someone, and I know someone it has.
‘Macy’s remove this from all of your stores and denounce the manufacturer.’
Alie received a lot of messages from people saying that it wasn’t fair to remove them from all stores but the posted a poignant message explaining why she thought it was so important to remove them.
She said: ‘I got an email from a Texas man this morning who lost his daughter at the age of 23 to an eating disorder and he told me he thought these plates were disgusting and exactly the type of thing that would have triggered a relapse in her.
‘That matters to me. We deserve better.’
The department store chain comment on Alie’s tweet and explained that they would be removing the plates from all stores where they are available.
They said: ‘We appreciate you sharing this with us and agree that we missed the mark on this product. It will be removed from all STORY at Macy’s locations.’
We have contacted Macy’s for comment and will update the article accordingly.
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