Lady Gaga stirs up Twitter with #PopSingersDontEat

Reuters25 mins ago

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Lady Gaga has stirred a debate over pop stars, diets and eating disorders with a tweet that some of her millions of fans have interpreted as insensitive.

On Tuesday, the "Born This Way" singer tweeted "Just killed back to back spin classes. Eating a salad dreaming of a cheeseburger." She then added the hash tag #PopSingersDontEat.

Some of her followers interpreted the inclusion of the hash tag as encouraging fans to avoid eating in order to become thin.

But it upset those who recalled her admitting earlier this year to having suffered from bulimia as a student and imploring people to stop obsessing with being overly thin.

"I'm gonna say this about girls: The dieting wars have got to stop. Everyone just knock it off," Gaga said at the conference held in Los Angeles and hosted by former California First Lady Maria Shriver.

The singer also has been an outspoken advocate for empowering youth who feel like outsiders, and the irony between what the singer has said in the past and her tweet was not lost on her more than 22.7 million followers in the Twitterverse.

One post from @StuddedBlack on Friday read "I was on the verge of becoming bulimic and now I just might because of YOU. #PopSingersDontEat"

Others, like this from @fluffness said, "People are taking the #PopSingersDontEat thing way too seriously! Acting like Gaga promotes that. She didn't mean it that way..."

A separate blog post on proud2beme.org, which is affiliated with the National Eating Disorders Association, said "If it was meant to be a joke, there are plenty of people who aren't findin! g it so funny."

Since the April 10 tweet, Lady Gaga has failed to address the flood of comments. She has only tweeted a few times, telling fans about listening to Radiohead and thanking them for buying tickets to her shows.

(Reporting By Bob Tourtellotte, Editing by Jill Serjeant)

[ [ [['A picture is worth a thousand words', 5]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/why-facebook-bought-instagram-4-theories-160400376.html', '[Related: Why Facebook bought Instagram: 4 theories]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 9]], 'http://contributor.yahoo.com/j! oin/yaho onews_virginiabeach', '[Did you witness the jet crash? Share your story with Yahoo! News]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['A JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/GV9zpj', '[Related: View photos of the JetBlue plane in Amarillo]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['Mitt Romney', 5]], 'http://yhoo.it/HPi2sz', ' ', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/d/57/d5736d809ccf02c4ff151dabfc32d52a.jpeg', '550', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 15]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/white-house-stays-out-of-teen-s-killing-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120411/martinzimmermen.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['Titanic', 7]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/titanic-anniversary/', ' ', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/b/4e/b4e5ad9f00b5dfeeec2226d53e173569.jpeg', '550', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 6]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/navy-jet-crashes-in-virginia-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120406/jet_ap.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP', ] ]

[ [ [[' the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 4]], '28924649', '0' ], [ [['because I know God protects me', 14], ['Brian Snow was at a nearby credit union', 5]], '28811216', '0' ], [ [['The state news agency RIA-Novosti quoted Rosaviatsiya', 6]], '28805461', '0' ], [ [['measure all but certain to fail in the face of bipartisan', 4]], '28771014', '0' ], [ [['matter what you do in this case', 5]], '28759848', '0' ], [ [['presume laws are constitutional', 7]], '28747556', '0' ], [ [['has destroyed 15 to 25 houses', 7]], '28744868', '0' ], [ [['short answer is yes', 7]], '28746030', '0' ], [ [['opportun! ity to t ell the real story', 7]], '28731764', '0' ], [ [['entirely respectable way to put off the searing constitutional controversy', 7]], '28723797', '0' ], [ [['point of my campaign is that big ideas matter', 9]], '28712293', '0' ], [ [['As the standoff dragged into a second day', 7]], '28687424', '0' ], [ [['French police stepped up the search', 17]], '28667224', '0' ], [ [['Seeking to elevate his candidacy back to a general', 8]], '28660934', '0' ], [ [['The tragic story of Trayvon Martin', 4]], '28647343', '0' ], [ [['Karzai will get a chance soon to express', 8]], '28630306', '0' ], [ [['powerful storms stretching', 8]], '28493546', '0' ], [ [['basic norm that death is private', 6]], '28413590', '0' ], [ [['songwriter also saw a surge in sales for her debut album', 6]], '28413590', '1', 'Watch music videos from Whitney Houston ', 'on Yahoo! Music', 'http://music.yahoo.com' ], [ [['keyword', 99999999999999999999999]], 'videoID', '1', 'overwrite-pre-description', 'overwrite-link-string', 'overwrite-link-url' ] ]