While having breakfast this morning, I nonchalantly flipped through this week’s edition of Star magazine that my grandmother had purchased at the checkout line at the grocery store. About halfway through the tabloid magazine, I reached a “12 page special!” section titled “Best and Worst Beach Bodies!”

As intrigued as I was disgusted, I read on (similarly to watching a horror movie through your hands). The beginning of the section praised skinny, bikini-clad models such as Kendall Jenner and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, but then caved way to criticism a few pages later.

The largest photo on the page titled “The WORST OMG Moments” is a photo of actress Tara Reid on the beach in a bikini. The caption:

“The 40-year-old actress should use some of that Sharknado paycheck to fix her botched boob job and lipo. And for a hairstylist and an agent and…”

Truthfully, I had never heard of Tara Reid before this moment, but I was offended for her. So what if she had plastic surgery? If it’s something she wanted to do, who is Star magazine, or anyone for that matter, to judge? And for the record, her long blonde hair looks amazing in the photo! Yet, Star suggested she invest in a hairstylist, which I found ridiculous.

Perhaps the worst part of this undeserved attack on Tara Reid is an inlay of text over her, screaming “THE GREAT DIVIDE!” with an arrow pointing to a space between her breasts. I was repulsed, not by Tara’s body, but by the magazine’s shameless criticism of her breasts. Don’t we have something better to do than make negative comments about women’s breasts? Shouldn’t magazines be reporting on something that actually matters? Obviously, this is not the purpose of "trash magazines" such as this one.

Good news reporting (unlike that of Star magazine) is bound to offend someone. But the outright criticism Star and other tabloid magazines make on female celebrities’ bodies, especially when they wear bikinis to the beach, is doing more harm than anything else. Not only would Tara’s feelings probably be hurt if she saw what Star wrote about her, the glorification of body shaming perpetuated by media outlets such as this one teaches the young women looking at the magazine that it’s okay to criticize fellow women, particularly wealthy and beautiful ones, for the way that their body looks. The value of criticism also teaches young girls to heavily criticize their own body and to compare themselves to the models deemed to have "the best beach bodies," according to Star. No one is being helped here. There is no positive effect of Star's commitment to body shaming.

Body shaming is never okay, no matter the size of the person. Fat shaming and skinny shaming both happen in the media and in day-to-day life (think: "that girl needs to eat a burger" versus "jeez, she can afford to lay off the donuts!") on top of criticism surrounding women’s stretch marks, pregnancy weight, plastic surgery, tattoos, supposedly “too-revealing” clothing, etc, etc. I hope that everyone could be as disgusted by the relentless judgment and straight up mean comments as much as I am, so that the negativity directed at others, as well as ourselves, can stop.

Every summer, we hear all about how to get your “beach body,” and every summer I balk at the idea. Everyone has a “beach body.” It’s what happens when you bring your body to the beach. The concept, then, is a false reality perpetuated in order to lure women who believe that they are fat to invest in diet scams and the powerful drug that is self-hatred.

There is no such thing as a “beach body” that these diet scams talk so much about. I am a firm believer that women and men alike should be able to wear whatever they want everywhere they go (including a bathing suit on the beach - what a concept!) without fear of criticism. Who are we to judge someone for wearing something they are comfortable in, especially on the beach in the hot weather?

Here I propose a challenge. Next time you go to the beach, make the day an entirely judgment-free day. No matter what people are wearing on the beach, no matter what their body looks like, make the conscious effort not to judge them for it. You may be surprised by how many times you catch yourself silently judging someone based on their appearance.

Also, make the conscious effort to stop judging yourself. Stop comparing yourself to photos of seemingly "perfect" Victoria's Secret models posing in overpriced bikinis. Stop comparing yourself to the highly-edited bikini photos of Instagram models. Stop feeding into the unrealistic body image that society demands of us women.

There is no such thing as a beach body.