Diary of a Fit Mommy founder Sia Cooper used a cosmetic surgery patient’s before-and-after pictures to promote and sell her “12 Week Diastasis Recti Home Workout Plan.”
In November last year, a friend of the former patient noticed that Cooper, a fitness influencer with more than a million Instagram followers, was using a before/after surgery image to advertise her $50 workout program, posting the misleading image to her blog, and her Instagram and Pinterest accounts.
In a letter of apology to her followers titled “We Need to Talk,” Cooper writes that she first discovered the image when searching Google for diastasis recti repair, but “didnt know whom owned the image (or else I would have credited them). [sic]”
After Apologies Deleted, 2nd Patient Shares Similar Story in April
Three months after our original coverage of this story, a second patient shared with the Times that pictures showing her own surgery results were similarly misused, in April 2022, by Ms. Cooper to advertise her workout program.
Cooper’s apologies, on her blog and Instagram, had also been deleted.
The second patient wished to have her photos remain unpublished here, but two women separately confirmed with the Times that Cooper had used them in an Instagram Story advertising her workout program.
“The photo pictured was from a woman who had surgery, did not use Sia’s program, and did not give permission to use her photo,” one of the women said.
This Times screen shot taken January 13, 2022, shows reader comments on that deleted apology, a copy of which can be found on the Internet Archive.
“I found it here,” she writes [of the original image], linking to a website that is no longer live. The image still appears on 22 virtually identical websites selling various products.
In each instance seen by Surgical Times, the image previously used by Cooper was accompanied by the title “How To Pay For Diastasis Recti Surgery,” and does not appear to have an actual product linked to it available for purchase.
Ironically, one of Cooper’s own images has also been usurped and is used by many of these same websites to falsely advertise a different product that she likewise is unaffiliated with.
Here again, the faux product entry isn’t actually linked to a product for sale, but merely pulls headline text and an image from another’s website to create a mock entry, likely to scam consumers or to increase traffic to valid product entries.
The [original] image misleadingly used by Cooper to promote an at-home workout-based approach to repairing diastasis recti belongs to patient Lisa Schader, a financial coach who shared it to her own website in July 2020.
Ashley Nowe of Get Mom Strong initially brought the misuse of the image to Schader’s attention.
While reader comments on concerned social media posts from both influencers eventually “descended into a toxic vortex,” and were subsequently turned off, the pair was able to agree on a resolution that involved each of them donating to a nonprofit and Cooper of @diaryofafitmommyofficial providing course refunds if requested.
Had the parties involved not been public figures—who each routinely publish on various aspects of their personal lives—use of the image to inaccurately advertise the results of an at-home workout-based approach to DR repair may have lasted longer.
This incident is discussed on Season 4, Episode 1 of Plastic Surgery Uncensored, a podcast hosted by Dr. Rady Rahban.
The episode, “Avoiding Diastasis Scams with Guest Lisa Schader,” aired Wednesday, January 12.
Surgical Times reached out to both parties involved for comment.
Updated to add events that occurred in April 2022, including the deletion of apologies, and a second patient coming forward about their surgical images being used. The Times reached out to Ms. Cooper both prior to and after the publication of this story but has yet to hear from her.