| Alyssa Toomey 27. März 2015 – 10:45
On Monday, the website The Chive posted a “before and after” photo of Anne Marie Sengillo in a story about “amazing weight loss transformations.”
So, why the outrage? Because the personal pics in question were taken from Reddit after Sengillo uploaded the images to share her recovery from anorexia.
Yes, this actually happened.
The Chive’s story, in which Sengillo’s images have since been removed, featured a split shot which sees Sengillo weighing 150 pounds on the left and just 90 pounds in the right pic.
LOOK: This skinny model is eight months pregnant—but her shocking bump looks more like a food baby
As Sengillo explained to Buzzfeed, she was struggling with a severe eating disorder at the time the “after” pic was taken—only to later discover the image being celebrated on The Chive.
“That was the exact opposite reason of why I posted those photos,” Sengillo tells People. “I wanted to show that it is not really attainable for most people. Those pictures you see online of super skinny girls? Most of the time it’s either done dangerously or they have a really high metabolism, and that’s only a few percent.”
Sengillo’s eating disorder first began in 2006 and her most recent relapse happened last year. “I was lucky that my fiancé caught the signs,” she told Buzzfeed. “Since then, I’ve been on the road to recovery.”
READ: Demi Lovato defends those suffering from eating disorders
Sengillo’s Reddit post was titled “my progress in my recovery from an eating disorder” and she uploaded an entire album of photos to Imgur, which sees her weight yo-yoing from 150 to an alarming 70 lbs. at her lowest. Although her extremely low weight is not pictured, Sengillo writes of the 90-pound pic, “My dad died and other crap snowballed my weight loss into some monster of a thing. It started out innocently enough, but became a 5 hour a day workout and 500 calories a day.”
With regards to why Sengillo uploaded the photos, she says, “The major point of the album was to show that relapses happen.”
In a surprising turn of events, Sengillo claims that The Chive previously used her pics over the summer and called her out for having an eating disorder.
“I just wish they took a little more time to research the photos, especially since they already had that red dress photo on their site last July labeled under eating disorder,” she tells People. “If they had taken more time to look back, they would have seen that it didn’t belong there.”
READ: Kesha writes eating disorder essay
While Sengillo initially told Buzzfeed that The Chive refused to apologize, the website has now issued a statement in a post titled “An Apology to One Strong Woman.”
“We had previously discovered the photo somewhere out there in the internet echo chamber which contained no frame of reference whatsoever,” the statement read. “We obviously had no idea Anne Marie had anorexia but that doesn’t excuse the action at all. It was a mistake, completely unintentional, and the photo was removed the second we found out about it.
“We usually don’t air these issues out in public, because I think the true apology belongs to Anne Marie personally, which we have also sent. We are deeply sorry for having posted this photo, but I’m posting this out here on theCHIVE because I think you should know about Anne Marie’s story,” The Chive added (read the full statement here), including a link to Sengillo’s original album.
Celebs who suffered from body dysmorphia
: