Over the holiday season, people tend to celebrate more and overindulge in food and drink, which leads to some extra pounds by the time the New Year rolls around. And as long as fitness magazines have been around, they’ve done stories on how to lose that extra holiday weight. But these days, people get outraged by everything, including when a fitness magazine suggests that readers actually exercise.
That’s what happened when Women’s Fitness Magazine posted an on-brandtweetand it started a whole thing. It read, “Are you getting out for a run, walk or cycle today? It’s a great day to burn off those Christmas calories … post your pics here!” The magazine is all about living a healthy lifestyle, but people on Twitter had a problem with it, including psychiatristDr. Sarah Vohra, who called out the tweet’s “problematic language” and another Twitter user who said the suggestion of exercising to “burn off Christmas calories” was a “triggering and outdated message.”
But instead of ignoring the critics, Women’s Fitness apologized and tried to clarify, tweeting, “We weren’t saying people had to burn off calories,” and “We know that not everyone exercises for weight loss.” And that’s the part that really shocked people. Social media users, includingJoe Rogan, didn’t understand why a fitness magazine would actually apologize for suggesting people exercise after the holidays. The UFC commentator and podcast host posted a screenshot of an article about the magazine’s apology captioning it, “This is so dumb it hurts my feelings.”