What's Motivating the Concern Trolls Targeting This Pregnant Weightlifter?

In yet another day of social media trolls shaming moms for their choices, an eight-months-pregnant weightlifter is showcasing some of the hateful comments she receives on the workout posts she shares. Fitness trainer Yanyah Milutinović recently posted on Instagram a video of herself lifting weights and exercising with pop-up bubbles of the nasty notes she gets about how she is “putting her baby’s life in danger” and saying she is “going to give the baby whiplash.”

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While Milutinović is a pro who exercises three to six days a week and conducts in-person fitness training sessions for clients, commenters regularly question if what she is doing is safe shaming her for her rigorous pregnancy fitness routine. In the caption of her Instagram post, she explains she has been getting these negative comments “Daily, weekly, yearly. For 7 years now, and through two fit pregnancies.”

“If I was your husband I would have you arrested you clout hungry h-,” reads one bashing on the video clips of Milutinović working out.

“Is this legal?” asks another, as the pregnant mom squats with 315 pounds, as her husband Risel Martinez spots her. The couple are already parents to 3-year-old-daughter, Smiljana.

“Anything for the attention. Like really, what’s the point?” one attacker wrote, a common critique that the fit mom is just doing it for the wow factor.

A post shared by Yanyah Milutinović | Fit Mom (@yanyahgotitmade)

For the record, Milutinović says her OB-GYN is “super supportive” of her fitness choices and that she did similar workouts while pregnant with her daughter in 2017. Obviously, every pregnant person should consult their doctors for what’s right for them and their fitness level, and Milutinović isn’t advocating that all pregnant people do what she does. Instead she is just unapologetically doing “my thing, not allowing myself to be discouraged by ignorant and baseless criticism,” she wrote. “I am confident, strong, knowledgeable, and in tune with myself and my growing child. Aware of who I am, and what I want. I am built different.”

“Those little ass-clowns on Instagram can’t stop me from doing what I do,” Milutinović, told The New York Post. “I’m unbreakable.”

So, what are the motives of the people who write in to criticize Milutinović? Or who shame snowboarder Torah Bright for breastfeeding in a topless headstand? Or who bash countless other celebrity and regular moms for their choices?

Some of the haters write authoritatively about the health and safety of mothers and kids, but it’s not clear whether they actually have medical expertise. And even if they do, they are not that mom’s doctor, who would have the most accurate knowledge and ability to judge.

Other shamers are appalled more by whatever they think is not “proper,” but it is unclear who named them the morality police. Why do they think their opinion is warranted? Does posting something on social media make it fair game for haters? Are pregnant people and mothers just easy targets for people who need to feel powerful online?

Yes, posting on social media is inviting others to voice their opinions on what you share, but wouldn’t it be nice if more people followed what mothers always tell their own kids: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all?”

As Torah Bright said in her Instagram video regarding her on Instagram drama:

“Mothers, we need to encourage one another, we need to lift each other up. We need to pay each other compliments, we need to support each other,” she said. “We need to be each other’s biggest cheerleaders because motherhood is so beautiful, but reality is we are the only ones who know just how hard those hard moments are, and we need to have each other’s back.”

Before you go, read about how Heidi Klum, Angelina Jolie, and more celebrity parents co-sleep with their kids.

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