“I shouldn’t have used that term because there’s such a thing as cutting weight and that is not healthy,” the Teen Mom OG star, 29, exclusively told Us Weekly on Tuesday, January 26, while promoting season 9 of the MTV show. “It’s not how you’re supposed to maintain your weight in wrestling.”

The Tennessee native added that she knew she “would get backlash” after saying her 12-year-old was on a “very strict” diet in May 2020.

“I wasn’t shocked by that,” the reality star told Us on Tuesday. “That was one of those scenes where I was like, ‘You were being a butthead, Maci.’ I specifically remember that day. I was in a terrible mood.”

The Naked and Afraid alum clarified that Bentley’s new, “correct” diet involves cutting out Doritos and chocolate milk, drinking water regularly and eating breakfast every morning.

“It’s a healthier lifestyle diet,” Bookout explained. “It was not a lose weight diet. It was just so he could maintain his weight class and not have two pounds of Doritos and Snickers bars. … I’m just trying to teach Bentley like, ‘Hey, if you start eating like this, you’re going to like it. You’re going to feel better and you won’t have to starve.”

The MTV personality, who shares her son with ex Ryan Edwards, went on to tell Us that drastically cutting weight “would not fly” in her house. “Wrestlers will restore to … eating whatever they want, and then they starve to death for two days.”

The MTV personality clapped back at mom-shamers at the time, writing, “My brother was a collegiate wrestler so I grew up around the sport and have a bit of knowledge in the sport and healthy weight maintenance.” Bookout doesn’t always choose to do so while raising Bentley and daughters Jayde, 5, and Maverick, 4 — especially if she can tell that the trolls are “just bored.”

Bookout told Us, “If you feel like what they are saying is No. 1, false, and No. 2, could actually [hurt] your reputation, [then respond].”

Teen Mom OG airs on MTV Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.

With reporting by Christina Garibaldi

This story originally appeared on: US Magazine - Author:Riley Cardoza