Kelly Osbourne was on the cover of Self Mag, looking all cute and stuff.  So I picked it up at Harris Teeter.  It wasn’t til I got the thing home, that the horror music started playing.

Literally, how it went in my mind.  “OMG yay Kelly Osbourne is on the cover!  I love her tattoos and she seems so happy and colorful now!”

Then I saw the tagline that went with it.

Let me explain a little bit about my background.  A bajillion years ago, MTV had this show called “Fat Camp” that was airing.  I loved every second of it.  The thought that there was this beautiful place out there in the wilderness where people went to camp (my favorite thing ever!) to eat healthy and lose weight sounded like paradise to me.  Fast forward about 5 or 6 years?  I was an employee, a fitness instructor at this paradise, and I literally will talk your head off about camp for 1000 hours if you let me.  So that said, I know for a fact, that people who’ve lost astonishing amounts of weight like a nice compliment, but don’t like you pointing it out like they looked like some fat disgusting freak of nature before.  So you know me. I had to write a letter to the editor.

Let’s start with the good.

I’m too broke to afford a subscription to your mag, so I follow you on all the social networks, and when I have a little extra cash, or when your mag is SUPER good, I’ll pick up a copy.

Kelly Osbourne was looking cute as a button, and I had to pick up May’s issue of Self. However, I was blown away (and not in a good way) by this tagline. “Kelly Osbourne. Exactly how she lost 70 pounds! That’s like half a person!”

I’ve not had a huge weight struggle, but I’ve worked at weight loss campus for the last three summers. The absolute last thing that a person wants to hear when they’ve lost a ton of weight? “You’ve lost like half a person!” “That’s like losing a full child’s worth of fat!” or “You lost a full person!”

Now this isn’t to say that a person who’s lost a lot of weight doesn’t like to be told, “Man, you look great!” “Have you been doing Yoga? Your arms look so jacked!” “[Insert city here] is treating you so well, you look fantastic!” But saying things that make the person feel as if they looked like a disgusting fat beluga whale before? It’s not flattering or fun. It’s sort of hurtful. And an insensitive thing to say.

That said, Kelly Osbourne looks freaking fantastic, and she seems like she’s in an awesome place in her life. Keep featuring strong, loud, brave women like her, and I’ll be picking this up every month!

I’m hoping they’ll take the advice and lay off those sorts of compliments next time.