Amory gym owner speaks out about controversial social media post

A gym in Amory is under fire after a social media post went viral for body-shaming some of its members.

AMORY, Miss. (WCBI) – A gym in Amory is under fire after a social media post went viral for body-shaming some of its members.

The Facebook post under the name Muscle Maxx Gym featured a 20th-anniversary t-shirt. The post stated, “If you are a fat person, we ask that you do not ask for a shirt. The truth is we do not want you to represent us in public.”

Co-owner of Muscle Maxx Gym Crystal Justice said the social media post was something out of her control because she said the account got hacked.

Justice said the page is an old Facebook account that was originally just a personal page with the Muscle Maxx gym name.

The post got tons of shares and backlash after the post was unapologetic on who could represent their brand.

Justice said she was just as shocked as everyone else.

“I got in from work and noticed I was getting messages that said ‘What’s going on what’s going on with your gym post,’ and I was like I don’t know what you are talking about, so I get on – or tried to get on and I couldn’t get on,” Justice said. “I have people sending me snapshots and I was like okay obviously we’ve been hacked because I can’t get on. Of course, we deactivated it, shut it down as fast as we could and I thought that would be that. ”

Justice said she found out about the public post when people began reaching out.

Another post from the same account said the gym had a probationary period at the beginning of the year for certain members.

The post states – “Some of them have been obese and at the gym for decades and something has to give – just a fact.”

Justice said the probationary period is there to offer free dieting programs for any members who feel like they fit in a certain category.

“We did start a thing in January of this year,” Justice said. “That was a probationary period that the person could say, ‘Hey I want to do this. I need extra help. I want to get in shape and it was all of our dieting programs that we offer for free for the ones that felt obese and needed help.'”

Justice said they accept any people at the gym but they do have a limit.

“We do have a cutoff though of members because this gym is kind of small, and we try to cut it off around 50 (people),” Justice said. “Sometimes we have a few more depending on husbands and wives. I think right now we have 58 active members.”

While the post has already reached thousands, Justice says it is not a correct representation of the gym.

“We want to help the person we don’t want to put someone down because of their size,” Justice said. “All I can do is apologize for what happened but we can’t help what someone else does.”

Justice said they do not plan to contact law enforcement about the alleged hack or pursue an investigation.

A new social media page has been made for the gym.