The meteorologist doesn't care weather you like her body or not.
This meteorologist doesn't care whether or not you like the way she looks.
"I'm just trying to do the weather, people. I'm not a model. I'm not an actress. I'm just doing my job," Tracy Hinson told InsideEdtion.com on Friday, responding to a viewer who sent her a fat-shaming email.
The St. Louis forecaster for KSDK-TV has become a social media heroine for clapping back to the nasty note that included this admonishment: "Maybe you should wear a top that covers the bulge in your stomach."
Hinson, 28, took to Twitter to call out the writer who asked, "Do you ever watch yourself giving the weather report? Seems that you need a girdle for the stomach overhang which shortens the front of your dress!"
The television weatherwoman replied, "Dear Mary, yes I do watch my air checks. NO I will not be strapping myself into a girdle because you don't like my belly. I like pasta, bread and cheese too much to obsess over my weight."
She also has a photo on her Instagram page proclaiming her love for macaroni and cheese.
"We get comments like that all the time," Hinson said of viewers who rudely comment on the physical appearance of female presenters. And most of those snarky missives come from older women, she said.
The girdle writer had "grandma" in her email address, "which I thought was kind of sad," Hinson said. The meteorologist said she doesn't know why women viewers seem to be harsher than men toward women on air.
"Some people online comment with thinks like, 'It's jealousy' or 'It comes from people not being confident in themselves.' Sometimes I think that people look at people on TV and think that they're not real, and they can say things like that."
Her social media accounts have been deluged with thousands of supportive posts. "Thank you for this and props to you," one woman wrote, referring to Hinson's proclamation of liking herself just the way she is. "I think you are beautiful. Be you," the woman concluded.
The weather forecaster said the idea of being wedged into shapewear for eight hours a day sounds like something akin to torture.
Besides, she said, "It can only suck in so much."
Like her father, Hinson said, "I have a little bit of a belly."
And she's perfectly fine with that. "It's my body, and it's OK. I'm 130 pounds and 5 (feet) 4 (inches)."
By sticking up for her stomach, Hinson said, "Maybe this will dissuade people from sending stuff to our newsroom."
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