Justine Elwood works at Cold Stone Creamery in Layton, Utah, and the 19-year-old college student was recently faced with a horrible situation when a customer began fat-shaming her to her children, KTRK reports.
The customer allegedly told her children, “If you eat too much ice cream, you’ll look like her,” and the customer also left a Yelp review for the store in which she referred to Elwood as “disgustingly obese.”
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“One of their female employees Jessie? Jennifer? J something, is disgustingly obese, and each time we come in, although she does her job, and is very polite, instantly makes my appetite disappear,” the review read.
Elwood said that she was “shocked” by the customer’s comments.
“It’s never good to hear that stuff about yourself, it definitely didn’t make me feel good for sure,” she said. “I was just shocked because I feel like that’s not something you should say in front of kids anyway. And it wasn’t very nice. I feel like that’s not a good thing to teach your kids, but it happens I guess.”
Since the incident, customers have been visiting the store with messages of support for Elwood, with some bringing her flowers and balloons her first shift back.
The teen wrote in a Facebook post that she shared her story in an effort to combat bullying.
“I am trying to raise awareness to a HUGE problem that so many men, woman and children face every single day,” she wrote. “Bullying is an epidemic. It is contributing to so many other issues that people face.”
“I shared my story to show others that they aren’t alone,” Elwood continued. “This kind of stuff happens everyday to other people and I want nothing more than to help people dealing with this.”
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