Has This Teen’s Attempt To Take Down Body Shaming Comments Backfired On Her?

This Florida teen is being accused of attention-seeking with midriff-baring photos taken last year in opposition to mean weight-shaming tweets [Photo: VandeBabe/Twitter]

After spotting mean girls on Twitter posting absurd comments agreeing that women who weigh more than 130lb (9 st 3 pounds) shouldn’t wear crop tops, short shorts or leggings, a Florida teen decided to prove them wrong.

Last year the student, whose Twitter name is Kales, screen-grabbed several of the weight shaming tweets and followed them up with a series of photos. The first showed her weight on a pair of scales, which at 141.4 lbs is 11lbs over the weight documented in the mean tweets. Then she shared some selfies of her wearing the items detailed in the tweets.

👀🐸☕️ pic.twitter.com/lesSlbqYuF

In one she poses leaning forward in white denim cut-offs and a cropped vest top. And in the next she poses in grey leggings and a cropped T-shirt.

At the time she received a huge flurry of supportive tweets from other users, receiving over 40,000 re-tweets for the photos of her in the revealing outfits.

However, she’s recently seen a backlash to the photos from users saying that contrary to purveying a body positive message, and standing up to bullying over body image, they think she’s seeking attention for her slim figure.

Users on Twitter have suggested she isn’t who the original offensive comments were directed at.

“I don’t get why you did this considering you’re not what people mean when they say “don’t wear this”,” wrote one person.

Kales then fired back pointing out: “The whole purpose of the post is to be comfortable with your weight no matter what your size is…”

Kales photos have seen her labelled an attention-seeker on Imgur [Photo: VandeBabe/Twitter]

On Imgur her tweets have been parodied with a post called Why are girls so mean, which has seen users call out Kales for using the original body shaming tweets to fuel her own agenda.

One user accused her of vying for attention, writing: “Pay attention to me and tell me I’m pretty,” while others pointed out your height effects how you carry weight and that the metric used in the original tweet are arbitrary.

While Kales may, as the Imgur users imply, have a healthy BMI and be confident in her looks, isn’t it a good thing for her to try to spread body positivity and to undermine messages which attempt to shatter other women’s body confidence?

There’s certainly nothing sisterly about making fun of her for showing off her figure, that’s for sure.

What do you think of Kales’s photos? Tell us @YahooStyleUK.

Publisher issues apology after outrage over body-shaming swimsuit article

Plus-Size Model Shuts Down Fat-Shamers In Most Epic Way Ever