Tall, thin, and tan are the three T's of summer that everyone seems to be working to achieve. Gyms are full, and voluntary starvation is on the rise. Tanning beds are overbooked, and cosmetic surgery is a booming business. How do I, the petite, food-loving, pale girl, look like that perfect picture in so many of our heads? Here's the catch: I don't. I can't. And over the years, I have learned that it is okay.
In middle school and my first year of high school, I would often skip breakfast and lunch and pretend I was sick so that my parents would let me go to bed without dinner. I would do this because of my obsession with being thin. In my mind, I could never be small enough, and the smaller I got, the more compliments I got. The thinner I looked, the more I was told I looked like a model. Today, I look back at pictures of myself, when I thought I was beautiful, and it makes me sick. Sick and sad.
So many people fall into the trap of thinness during the summer time. It has taken me five years to put on forty, beautiful pounds and plan to continue to gain because beauty is not about being thin. Your perfect bikini body shouldn't be inspired by a twig you find in your backyard. Your summer bod goals should be the same as your everyday goals: being healthy. Nothing is more stunning than a healthy and happy body. So if your healthy is thinner than thin or thicker than thick, be that and rock whatever clothes or bathing suits you want!
If you are one of those people who judge thin women for wearing super modest swimsuits or who judge curvy women for wearing bikinis, stop body shaming. I was encouraged in starving myself because my chunky childhood body was picked on and my scary skinny body was praised. Do not be the reason someone falls into the clutches of anorexia or bulimia. Stop making fun of thin women for eating so much and never gaining a pound. Stop making fun of average-sized women for not being thick or thin. Stop making fun of thick women for "being unhealthy."
Not everyone's healthy looks the same, but we should embrace our own and everyone else's healthy bodies. When you go to the beach, we should not label people or ourselves as beached whales or neon pale; we should label them as beautiful and tell them such! Throw away your diet pills and those nasty weight-loss and weight-gain shakes because your body is amazing. Those people feeding you the "ideal image" are giving you the wrong image if it isn't your own untouched photo of the you reading this article.
You are more than the fad diets you are on. You are more than the numbers on the scale. You are beautiful, and now, I'm not talking about your body. Your heart and soul are beautiful, and no matter what you choose to wear, that will never change.
