Facebook 'Feeling Fat' No More; Emoji Discontinued After Online Backlash
By Melony Roy
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) --- Following protests, Facebook has removed the "Feeling Fat" smiley-faced emoji as an option for a user's status updates.
The chubby-cheeked, double-chinned emoji is one of about 50 "feelings" icons Facebook users can add to their status updates.
However, some Facebook users, not feeling the "feeling fat" emoji, created an online petition asking the social network to remove the emoticon because "fat is not a feeling".
Samantha DeCaro, the assistant director of the Renfrew Center of Philadelphia agrees.
"It's really normalizing the idea of negative body image and making it part of the vernacular which is a piece of some of the factors that drive eating disorders"
More than 16,000 people signed an online petition.
"Having these emojis really interfere with the ability to identify what we're really feeling. Instead of putting them where they should be we redirect them back to ourselves."
On Tuesday, Facebook replaced its "feeling fat" emoji with "feeling stuffed."