Shame on you, Mike Jeffries

As if young women don’t already feel enough pressure and stress when it comes to their body image, the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch has made it perfectly clear that he doesn’t want anyone plus-sized (or even normal-sized) shopping in the chain’s stores because, apparently, they’re “not cool.”

In an interview with Salon, CEO Mike Jeffries described the brand’s target audience: “In every school there are the cool and popular kids and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids … the attractive, all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes] and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Good-looking people attract other good-looking people and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that.”

Bullying from peers is bad enough. Bullying from an adult is unacceptable.

My Facebook feed has been lighting up the past few weeks with angry remarks towards the CEO:

“Thanks for contributing to the thousands of young girls with eating disorders and low self-esteem.”

“Ignorant.”

“Makes me sick.”

“Zero is not a size.”

Most retail stores offer a range of sizes up to 14, and sometimes even larger. Jeffries says these larger sizes will not be found on the shelves of his stores. He claims that he does this to keep plus-sized women out of the store. The store stocks larger men’s sizes, but only because they want to cater to those athletic builds that are often large.

Abercrombie’s size chart begins at 000. Yes, there’s a 000, a 00, and a 0 before you get to size 2. To me, that is ridiculous. As one of my Facebook friends commented, “zero is not a size.” I feel that this perpetuates low self-esteem too because it makes women wearing a size 4 or 6 feel “fat” because they’re four or five sizes from the smallest. Not to mention how a woman who wears a size 10 or 12 (which is a healthy and normal size depending on the person's age and height) feels when she realizes that none of the clothes in the store are "big enough" to fit her body.

Jeffries went on to boast, “Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.”

As you can imagine, the National Eating Disorders Association(NEDA) takes offense to Jeffries’ discriminatory marketing philosophy that fosters body shaming and insists that everyone boycott the company.

In a recent press release, Lynn Grefe, president and CEO of NEDA said, “Just say ‘No, thank you’ to A&F and do it now. In a society obsessed with body image, weight discrimination is far too common and shopping in these stores is buying into this discrimination, whether you mean to do it or not. Telling people that they aren’t good enough if they don’t look a certain way is not acceptable. This is body shaming at its worst and its consequences are dangerous, even life-threatening. People who are demonized for their size often attempt dangerous dieting behaviors that can lead to serious eating disorders. We must speak out against this type of bigotry. Boycotting Abercrombie & Fitch is clearly the only way Mr. Jeffries will hear our concerns and the only way we are standing up for each other.”

Claire Mysko, who oversees NEDA’s youth website Proud2Bme, added,“Jeffries’ comments send a dangerous message to a very vulnerable audience. In a recent Proud2Bme poll, 70 percent of our members told us that they constantly feel pressure to be ‘perfect.’ That pressure can lead to low self-esteem, poor body image and even disordered eating.  Jeffries’ comments echo the critical inner voice that so many young people struggle with—the voice that tells them, ‘You’re not good enough.’”

What do you have to say about Jeffries' comments? Will you allow your kids to still shop at Abercrombie & Fitch?