Blogger Hits Back at Diet Company for Using Her as a Fat Deterrent

Blogger Rachele Cateyes from Oregan had a picture of her stolen and used in an advert for a dieting company, Venus Factor, using her plus-sized image to deter other women from gaining weight and to buy their product.
Ms Cateyes is an active blogger who champions plus sized women and promotes positive body image. On her blog, she says of her childhood: “I had been taken into this tribe of self-hating, always dieting and judgmental women without ever having been given the chance to just love myself.”
The image that was taken without her consent is of her in a blue polka-dot “fatkini”, as she calls it on her blog, the Near Sighted Owl, in which she is looking cheekily over her sunglasses into the camera.
Ms Cateyes wrote, regarding the picture: “I felt glorious and glamorous all at the same time. I wore my stretch marks as ribbons of honour and let the sun kiss my lumpy thighs and arms without a care in the world.” She says her over the sunglasses expression was used by the company to dissuade women from being plus sized, when it was really meant to say “I am a fat confident lady”.
As the advert goes against everything Ms. Cateyes stands for, she is campaigning against Venus Factor, and has a strong case for claiming copyright infringement, according to Ben Depoorter, a professor of Law, because her husband took the snap, and they did not ask his permission.
It is regrettable that these dieting companies use vulgar and harsh advertising such as this, as it can potentially damage the self-confidence and, in extreme cases, health of women as they attempt to be as skinny as possible to replicate society’s version of beauty.
Unfortunately, balanced diets and healthy eating are advertised far less than adverts that focus on the negative image of being fat, and Ms. Cateyes’ situation really brings this out. In their defence, Venus Factor allegedly told her that the photo must have been taken by one of their third party affiliates, and “it’s unfortunate that everyone involved is being dragged through the mud.”