Mom’s Body-Positive Message Goes Viral After Daughter Is Told to Wear Spanx

A mother’s recent Facebook post about her daughter’s shopping experience at a Dillard’s in Wichita, Kan., has gone viral for its powerful message about body shaming.

Megan Naramore Harris said her 13-year-old daughter was trying on dresses for an upcoming formal dance when a salesperson at the department store told the teenager she needed Spanx to wear a gown her mom had picked out for her.

Harris said she told her daughter to go change and then had a conversation with the employee who continued to argue that a slimming undergarment was needed. This exchange prompted Harris to share a photo of her daughter wearing the dress on Facebook with a caption explaining what she wished she had said to the salesperson.

“I wish I had told you how many girls suffer from poor self image and telling them they need something to make them perfect can be very damaging,” she wrote. “Girls of all ages, shapes and sizes are perfect because that is how God made them. If they feel good in a dress, that is all that should matter. My daughter is tall, she swims, runs, dances and does yoga. She’s fit. She’s beautiful. She did not need you telling her that she is not perfect.”

The post has been liked over 432,000 times and shared over 74,000 times to date.

Tech Insider reached out to Dillard’s who released a statement from a corporate spokesperson: “At Dillard’s, our mission is to help people feel good about themselves by enhancing the natural beauty found in all of us. We train our sales associates with the goal of creating a completely positive experience with each visit. It is certainly never our intent to offend our customers.”