19 Kids and Counting star breaks family’s strict dress code by wearing shorts during workout

Joy-Anna Forsyth appears to be the latest member of the Duggar family to break their strict dress code rules.

The 27-year-old reality TV star — who appeared on the TLC show 19 Kids and Counting — recently posted an Instagram video of her morning routine with her three childreen. In the clip, Forsyth could be seen wearing an item of clothing that was typically unconventional for her conservative family growing up.

At one point in the video, Forsyth got dressed to go to the gym wearing a pair of shorts and an athletic top.

As fans of the show are well aware, women in the Duggar family have been known to dress conservatively on the reality show. Throughout 19 Kids and Counting’s seven-season run, their everyday attire consisted of long, ankle-length skirts and shirts that covered their shoulders.

Forsyth’s older sister, Jinger Vuolo, further detailed what she and her siblings were allowed to wear in her 2021 memoir, The Hope We Hold, which was co-written with her husband, Jeremy.

“My mom had always dressed us girls in skirts and dresses, a standard that was taken from Deuteronomy 22:5, which says, ‘A woman shall not wear a man’s garment,’” she wrote.

“Modesty was a huge topic in our house, and we believed that wearing skirts instead of pants was a central part of being modest. But I wanted to discover for myself what the Bible had to say.”

Forsyth previously spoke about her family’s dress requirements during an appearance on The Unplanned Podcast with hosts Matt and Abby Howard. During the episode, she clarified that her brothers had rules they needed to follow as well.

“They had this standard because they didn’t want guys showing their thighs,” she said of her parents, Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar. “And so they were like, ‘Okay, and girls either.’”

While her parents “loosened up” following her teenage years, Forsyth admitted their rules were still quite specific.

“They were like, ‘Shorts are kind of on the line,’” she continued. “And so my brothers — probably until I was 15, 16 — they didn’t wear shorts.”

Forsyth also broke her parent’s rule about dying her hair, which she documented in an Instagram video last October.

“I’m probably going to go through regret then I’m going to love it or I’m going to hate it and then I’m going to go get it fixed,” she said in the video. “You only live once, right? Might as well just do it. I’ve been wanting to do it for a while.”

In the 2014 book Growing Up Duggar, co-written by the four eldest Duggar daughters, they further explained rules regarding their hair.

“Our hairstyle is our choice, and we choose longer hair based on our understanding of 1 Corinthians 11:4-15,” an excerpt from the book read. “While it is a shame for a man to have long hair, a woman’s hair is her glory.”

Forsyth has previously addressed that she and her family have since distanced themselves from the Institute in Basic Life Principles Church, which has largely influenced her parent’s rules.

“We’d always talk about when we were dating that we weren’t gonna use their literature and stuff like that… Just kind of distanced ourselves,” she said about herself and her husband, Austin, in a YouTube video from September 2023.

Forsyth is the fifth daughter born to her parents, and the ninth of 19 children. She and Austin were married in May 2017. They’re parents to three children: Gideon, six, Evelyn, four, and Gunner, 17 months.