CBS Philadelphia Meteorologist Stands Up To Cyberbullies Commenting On Pregnancy Weight
PHILADELPHIA (CBSNewYork) -- A CBS Philadelphia meteorologist is finding herself at the center of a cyberbullying nightmare.
Katie Fehlinger is nine months pregnant with twin girls. She's getting a lot of negative social media remarks about her size, but as CBS2's Emily Smith reported, she's fighting back.
"This has been something I've personally struggled with is to just let these comments roll off my back," Fehlinger said.
Comments on social media include tweets such as "I hope the viewers and you are never subjected to this again. Take a leave of absence. We don't need to know."
Other comments include calling Fehlinger "A sausage in casing" and "Sticking your pregnant abdomen out like that is disgusting."
That's where Fehlinger drew the line, deciding to address the comments with a message to her haters.
"I just had this click where it was a moment of clarify, and I'm like, you know what, that made me so fed up and I had to say something," she said.
Smith spoke with new moms at a post-natal Pilates class at Sangha Yoga Shala about their own experiences.
"I was seven months pregnant and somebody actually came to me and said 'Oh wow, you've gained so much weight!' And I was like 'Um, I am seven months pregnant, sooooo,'" said one woman.
"At the nail salon, they always asked me if I was having twins. I think people at work knew better," said another woman.
One body image expert applauded Fehlinger for speaking out, saying its the best thing she could have done.
"Hopefully we are starting to move away from that more now though, and we are having a better conversation with the help of media online that is bringing this kind of awareness to what is going on," said body image specialist Shelly Dammeyer.
Fehlinger suggests toasting to swollen feet, stretch marks, nausea, extra pounds and dark circles; calling them badges of motherhood. She ended with a lesson our own moms taught us: if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.
In addition to the nasty comments, Fehlinger said she has also received hundreds of messages of support.
