Anne Marie Sengillo at 150 pounds, left, and at 90 pounds, right.
Anne Marie Sengillo at 150 pounds, left, and at 90 pounds, right.
Imagine if you used the Internet to find support for recovering from your eating disorder, and help inspire others to overcome theirs. Now, imagine that photos of you at your most sick were used in an article on “amazing” weight loss transformations.
That’s exactly what happened to Anne Marie Sengillo of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Here’s the cover of the “amazing” weight loss transformations story in which Sengillo’s photos are a part of.
She tells Yahoo Health that she first learned from a concerned reader that the photos she posted of herself showing her experience with anorexia on Reddit had been republished — without her permission — on a website named The Chive, touted to detail “funny photos and videos”. The 27-year-old says she was shocked that the site only showed photos her beginning weight at 150 pounds and her anorexic weight at 93 pounds in a positively-spun story about weight loss transformations — not eating disorders.
Sengillo had posted a full album of photos that document her path to recovery on Reddit. The album showed her going from 150 pounds to 70, 90, 110, 95, 105, 113 and 120 pounds.
“I was really mad because my whole reason for putting the pictures out there was to show like ‘hey, there’s recovery, and relapse, but you can still get better,’” she tells Yahoo Health. “And they took all of that way. It made me physically sick because it upset me so much.”
She posted her collection of pictures on Reddit to show her path to health hoping to inspire others with eating disorders that they too can get better. She suffered with anorexia for seven years after her father’s death but has been in recovery since 2013.
The Chive has since issued an online apology to Sengillo. While she says she is appreciative, she notes at that point the story containing her photos had already been shared more than 2,000 times. Yahoo Health contacted The Chive for comment but had not received a response at press time.
Anorexia is a serious eating disorder, characterized by deliberate self-starvation with weight loss and a persistent fear of weight gain, according to the National Association of Eating Disorders (NAED).
Up to 24 million people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder (anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder) in the U.S. According to the NAED, Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.
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