Pregnant personal trainer Chontel Duncan has slammed a “misleading” article about “pregorexia” by the Courier Mail who she says tricked her into taking part.
Duncan, who owns a fitness company and promotes a healthy lifestyle on Instagram, said she was approached and interviewed by the News Corp outlet for what she thought was a positive article about pregnancy and fitness.
However, the finished product, which featured in Saturday’s paper and online was titled, “‘Pregorexia’ is fuelling body dissatisfaction, putting pregnant mum, bub at risk says experts”.
The 29-year-old said she was “publicly humiliated” by the article, which painted her as a damaging role model for mums-to-be and accused her of contributing to an “emerging body image disorder” dubbed pregorexia.
“I was 100% misled to believe I was being given an opportunity to bring awareness to practising a healthy pregnancy,” Duncan said on Snapchat.
The mum, who is 23-weeks-pregnant with her second child, said she felt like she had let her one-year-old son Jeremiah down.
“I tried to put on a brave face and even believed I was fine… Reality eventually hit and I broke down.”
Listen: Michelle Bridges knows what it’s liked to be slammed for working out while pregnant.
“To be publicly humiliated was one thing, but to have my son involved was just awful… I felt like I had let him down…”
On Instagram, she called out the article’s author for tricking her into believing she was being asked to “display her passion for normalising one of the amazing benefits to living a healthy lifestyle prior to conceiving”.
The HIIT Australia founder said she wanted to encourage girls and women to cut out “all deadlines, unrealistic expectations, silly number chasing games” and simply enjoy exercising.
Instead, Duncan claims she was brought down by “money hungry papers” to “make a headline and grab some extra attention and readers”.
“Shame on them for playing a part in social media trolling/bullying on such a large scale,” she wrote.
“Can you imagine how you’d feel if a well-known paper made a fool of you?”
Mamamia reached out to Chontel Duncan for comment, but she did not respond by time of publishing
Top Comments
This woman is also 1.86M tall. That is 3 centimeters taller than 6 feet tall. She is a real human being and she is also a woman who is in height alone, incredibly above average.
She was born very tall and very thin. She was also born with attractive features. Of course that makes average people insecure.
Highly intelligent people make average people insecure but we don't insist on eliminating all traces of them from the media. Because that would be as irrational and pathetic is this is.
I read the article and it is shameful. I couldn't even believe what I was reading. I couldn't believe they were using a a young woman and her baby's image to try and rustle up some hysteria. I feel like I just went back 50 years in time.
I started modeling when I was 13. I was the shortest, the curviest and the darkest skinned and I was competing against perfect, graceful, tall adults. I had a messy afro and pimples and they had sleek, bouncy Pantene hair. It doesn't matter. Sometimes they just wanted someone different from those perfect women and I learnt early that they do exist. Those women who actually look like their magazine covers in real life. And that they all have insecurities and get their hearts broken and they also have strangers judge them all the time by the way they look. Oh yeah, and they were kind to me. While I was being relentlessly bullied through all my school years, these models and photographers and fashion people made me feel welcome and safe and worthy like no one else ever had.
People will like what they like, I bet she found it tough being as tall as she is growing up, people stare and point and whisper. So she found a way to feel good about the athletic frame she was given. Good for her.
It's not skinny people's fault if your potential romantic partner has a preference for skinny people. It's not short people's fault if they want a short significant other. It's not a magazines fault if you are a sheep and literally have no option until you're told what you're supposed to like.
I think she's overlooking the issue of how culpable people in social media are if they post pics of themselves full well knowing that those images are used as thinspiration by others. It's somewhat akin to the modelling industry and media at large: by putting images out there of women who are unnaturally thin (by way of design or "skinny genes"), it sets the barometer for what we regard as "normal" or "enviable". Social media personalities and the modelling industry alike make money from the images they create by way of their selective, curated presence online. Should they not be scrutinised as a result?
I don't think she has. She is muscular (from damn hard work) and lean. Why should she have to apologise for being lean? What culpability does she have really? I follow this woman and have done for years, she is a proponent for exercise and healthy eating. She has only positive messages to relay. I don't think she is unnaturally thin, I think she is who she is. What about all the other women like her- do they not get to feel that they too have a 'normal' body? Believe it or not- there are women out there that struggle to build muscle and gain weight. I'm not one of them, but I have met enough people to know they exist. You are the body shamer- and I suspect a jealous one. Let her be. I think she has every right to be outraged, particularly due to the involvement of her child under false pretences.
Nope, not jealous at all - merely someone with an interest in the way the female body is curated, manipulated and marketed for profit in the public domain. Social media "celebrities" are a part of that phenomenon, and sadly it doesn't surprise me to see discussion of that countered with predictable cries of "Hater! Shamer! Jealous!". FWIW, I'd never heard about this woman before - but it sounds as though she needs to hire an agent if she feels misrepresented in the media.
Okay but what exactly do you expect Chontel, or any other thin woman who dares post a picture of herself on social media, to do about it? Should she hide herself away unless she has a perceivable flaw that will make us all feel better about ourselves?
No, I actually think we should be as critical of social media's distortion of the perception of the female form as we are all other forms of media. As such, social media personalities should not expect to operate from a platform that is immune from criticism or scrutiny, nor does it excuse them from having to consider the ethics of making a profit from their involvement in what is a reasonably poisonous industry.
In this case, it seems as though the newspaper decided to write a different angle than the blogger was expecting. Rather than engaging in a discourse about the (arguably very pertinent) issues raised by the article, the blogger made it into a personal attack, just because she was not allowed control of editorial content. Unlike her SM, she didn't get to pull the strings. All SM profiteers choose their image and what they put out. You certainly don't have to publish crap shots of yourself to appease the insecurities of others, but on the flipside, is posting shot after shot after shot of yourself wearing barely any clothes the only way to promote a healthy lifestyle? Really...?