The social media accounts of a Kuala Lumpur gym that was under fire for publicly shaming a Malaysian woman online have gone dark.
Fitness Champ’s Instagram and Facebook accounts appear to have been deleted when Coconuts KL checked today, three days after the company issued a public apology for its actions against a woman who had requested for discounts on fitness lessons in exchange for becoming the company’s poster-girl for weight loss.
The woman, named Sofia Cholan, said in a text exchange last week that she wanted to lose roughly 30kg to achieve her goal weight of 70kg. But instead of politely rejecting her request, the gym went on to share screenshots of the conversation and the woman’s travel photos to followers, asking whether they should help her.
“We wholly admit our mistakes and realise we have many more areas in ourselves that we need to improve therefore we pray that she as well as anyone who’s affected by this situation can accept our mistakes,” the apology said.
In what looks like a subtle shade Sofia’s way, the company went on to say that Sofia did not qualify for its weight loss program either.
“Some of the criteria that we look for in a student are honesty, dedication, integrity, and hardworking. After some deliberations, we find that she did not meet most of our criteria,” the apology read.
The company published the apology on Saturday, days after they spoke to Sofia. In the text exchange, the company said: “if you can afford to go overseas im sure you can afford our rm880 fees honey.”
In response to the gym, Sofia said: “You have honest people who want to try out your gym and see if it can help them reach their goals. I don’t have RM880 to spend on sarcasm and snarky comments and we’ll see if anybody else would want to spend theirs with you. Don’t choke on that granola bar, honey.”
Sofia shared online on Thursday that she had approached the gym with the inquiry after she learned that it was offering a weight-loss challenge that was completely free. But she didn’t expect to discover the gym’s shocking response.
“I’ve been struggling with weight loss for a long time and coming up with courage to even ask for help was huge for me, so to be given this type of response was truly shocking,” the post said.
The gym owner’s alleged Instagram account is no longer publicly available. Sofia said she has received multiple fitness lesson offers from other physical trainers.
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