Cancer is a serious, life-threatening disease that can take a major toll on a person's emotional and physical health. One thing cancer isn't? Weight loss inspiration.
But that's what Cosmo apparently thinks it is and the Internet isn't having it.
On Tuesday, Cosmo tweeted out a story called "How This Woman Lost 44 Pounds Without *Any* Exercise," which received a ton of backlash. The reason? The woman was battling cancer.
Almost immediately, the people of Twitter dragged the publication for its tone-deaf story.
Cosmo soon deleted the tweet and changed the title of the story to "A Serious Health Scare Helped Me Love My Body More Than Ever," but that didn't stop people from shaming Cosmo for promoting cancer as a weight loss secret.
The publication profiled fitness Instagrammer Simone Harbinson, who was "tested positive for malignant carcinoid tumor of the appendix." After undergoing multiple surgeries and dealing with major complications, the 31-year-old was diagnosed with “post-traumatic stress disorder triggered by her cancer diagnosis," which caused her to turn to food for comfort.
Struggling with her weight gain, Harbinson went on a diet called "The Bod" and "lost 44 pounds without a single session at the gym." Harbinson couldn't exercise because, as Cosmo explains, "she’s still recovering from surgery, she isn’t physically able to work out the way she used to before her cancer diagnosis."
And while it's important to note that Cosmo doesn't explicitly say that cancer directly helped her lose weight, their wording made it seem like that was the case.
What could have been an inspirational story about a woman's struggle to regain her health after fighting cancer turned into one about the secret of losing weight without exercise. Before Cosmo edited the story, one of the story's lines read, "Simone’s weight loss success is proof that ANYONE can lose weight without breaking a sweat simply by eating more mindfully—no gym required," according to Highsnobiety.
Palm. In. Face.