What would it take to convince you to hit the gym? A new membership? An enthusiastic trainer? Chances are, being bullied into a workout wouldn’t be your go-to answer here.
So it probably comes as no surprise that people in the UK weren’t too happy when they saw this gym advertisement last week:
"They're coming… and when they arrive they'll take the FAT ones first!" the ad for Fit4Less gym in Long Eaton, Derbyshire reads. The sign continues, "Save yourself!"
Many passersby have called the advertisement an obvious form of “fat-shaming” and “bullying.”
"Just this week alone I've had three cases of bullying due to weight issues and I feel campaigns like this aid bullying," Natalie Harvey, founder of Combat Bullying, told the Derby Telegraph.
So far, the gym has done nothing but defend the “harmless” sign, which they assumed looked cheeky and funny to everybody.
"We don't take ourselves too seriously – I'm a 45 year-old man who is 17.5 stone and proud of it – but I'm healthy with it," Jan Spaticchia, chief executive of Energie Group who owns Fit4Less, told the Derby Telegraph.
Spaticchia claims the gym thought the sign would be just light-hearted enough to attract some new guests.
"There is such a thing as being overweight and healthy – not everyone has to be skinny," said Spaticchia. "We also believe however that if we are going to reach more people as a sector then we need to stop taking ourselves so seriously and realise that if we want to attract normal people, then we need to be willing to poke fun at ourselves and our messaging is designed to do exactly that.”
The Co-Operative, the convenience store where the advertisement has been mounted, doesn’t share the same feelings.
"As soon as the poster on the side of our store in Tamworth Road, Sawley was brought to our attention we requested the agency responsible to remove it," a spokesman for the Co-Op told Mashable.
