*Trigger Warning: Mention of an Eating Disorder. Please don't put yourself in a bad situation.*

A few months ago, battling an eating disorder, I logged onto Tik Tok just for fun. Within a few minutes I ended up quite literally crying. I kept getting videos of super-skinny girls with perfect proportions and pretty faces and by the third I burst into tears, simply because I did not look like that, and I never will.

I was dangerously underweight at the time, constantly nauseous and dizzy, and barely eating. I was probably at about the lowest weight I could go without getting dangerously sick. I was never going to be that thin, simply because of how my body was made.

This isn't a pity party, and I know that I am naturally a skinny person. I'm very short and genetically acquired a fast metabolism. Honestly, a lot of the beauty standard is relatively catered to me, and despite my own insecurities and issues with how my body looks, I recognize that privilege. And yet I still feel horribly when my body doesn't look "perfect."

And that's the secret. There is no "perfect body." But posed and edited pictures tell me that there is, and that has many effects on me and every other woman who sees it. Today, however, I just want to talk about one, the fashion accessory no outfit is seemingly complete without: the flat stomach.

There are so, so, so many outfits that are nothing groundbreaking, but appear as such simply because they're accompanied by a perfect, toned stomach. The "Look" is, has been, and continues to be seemingly only complete with a complete lack of stomach pouch. Bodies are not accessories, they shouldn't make or break an outfit, yet in today's society without the perfect addition of a perfect stomach, there is so much you "can't" wear.

Medically, I understand how unrealistic this is. Women have that cute little pouch specifically to protect their uteruses. It's genetic. It's for survival. It's supposed to be there.

I know all this but I still won't wear crop tops without high-waisted bottoms, making sure no one can see my un-stretched belly button or my lack of perfect abs.

The damage that the flat stomach mind-set does to women is ridiculous, damaging, and incredibly dangerous. Almost no woman I know loves their body the way that they should, because when we look in the mirror we see bloating or our cute survival stomach pouch or stretch marks or a million other natural things that we've been taught to demonize. Treating a flat stomach as something as crucial to an outfit as pants or a shirt is ruinous.

Girls, you can wear whatever you want to wear, and I guarantee you'll look amazing. Confidence in what we choose to wear that makes us happy, not our proportions or our weight, is the best accessory we can have. We need to start to fully combat this narrative and embrace what's naturally normal for women to look like. Outfits are made of clothing, and clothing is meant to be changed. If a person can't change it in five minutes, it can't be a part of their outfit, so let's stop letting features be fashion.