I know what you’re thinking right now, “Not another body positivity article!” Yes, I am writing an article about body positivity, and this is the reason why: I have struggled with this problem my entire life, and I hate seeing my loved ones struggle with the same issues. Why is this important? Body positivity is important, especially to me, because when I am negative towards my body and the way it looks, I only hurt myself. I have read the articles and seen the videos that attack the body positivity movement because people believe that this movement encourages obesity; this frustrates me immensely. To paint a picture of why this angers me, I will share my own journey with body positivity.

I have never been “skinny,” and it is something that I’ve struggled with my entire life. I remember in second grade looking in the mirror and hating what I was seeing. I called myself fat, because that’s what I was taunted with. I would not be able to tell you the number of times I have been called fat, and it’s not something that I let myself dwell on. I was acutely aware of how my clothes made me look, and it made shopping and picking out daily outfits difficult. All I could see were my flaws. I would look in the mirror and list all of the things that I wish I could change about myself, and my negativity continued. I didn’t look like any of the girls on magazines or TV, and I honestly hated myself. This was in second grade, and my insecurities only grew with puberty.

I remember in fourth grade I had friends sleepover at my house and the next day I was trying to pick out an outfit for the day, but I couldn’t bring myself to put on a pair of shorts even though it was hot that day. My mom came in my room to check on me, and by that time I was crying. I told her that I couldn’t wear shorts because you could see my stretch marks. I was afraid that my friends would realize how fat and disgusting I was and not want to be my friends anymore. I would wear baggy clothes to hide what I thought were my flaws. I would look at other girls and wonder how they were happy with their bodies, when I was so dissatisfied with mine. I basically wanted to be anyone but me. This, unfortunately, was a common theme for me in middle and high school.

Middle school was when things truly got awkward. I think most people have an awkward middle school stage, but mine seemed to last forever. A changing body, wanting to fit in, and an excess of hormones resulted in an even more critical outlook on my frustrating body. In seventh grade, I met with a dietitian a few times, but I couldn’t follow through with many long-term changes. I felt so much pressure to lose weight, and I hated eating in front of others because I felt like I was constantly being judged for not only my weight, but also what I ate. I was unhappy, and I thought that losing weight and becoming “skinny” would finally solve my problems. Every issue I had seemed to go back to my body issues. If I felt left out, if a boy didn’t like me, if I had a bad day, it all came back to not being comfortable in my own skin.

I became more comfortable with my body in high school, but I still didn’t have the greatest mentality about body image. I would eat salad everyday for lunch because I didn’t want people to look at my tray of food and think “that’s why she’s fat.” Yes, I do like salad, but that doesn’t mean that I want to eat it every day. I’d take cues from my friends and only eat as much as they did so that they wouldn’t get the wrong idea about me. There were more moments in high school than there were in middle school when I was actually comfortable with my own body. However, I would still have days where all I could see were my flaws. When I did have days where I accepted or even loved my body, I felt like the world around me was constantly telling me not to. I felt like if I did love my body that there was something wrong with me for liking myself the way I was. It honestly wasn’t until junior year of college that I finally stopped caring about how society thought that I should see myself.

This last year of college, my junior year, has shown me how to love my body, and still be healthy. By loving my body, I’m not saying that I’m going to stay the same exact way forever, but rather that I’m going to love my body at every stage. I want to accept and appreciate all of the great things my body does for me, even if I don’t fit with the societal expectation of what healthy and beautiful looks like. I still exercise, eat healthy and drink plenty of water, but I also allow myself, on occasion, the small luxuries of the not-so healthy things (i.e. potato chips). I’m not going to punish myself for those days or hate my body because I’m not the size of a model; instead, I’m going to accept where I’m at and take it in stride. Why should I hate myself because society isn’t comfortable with me loving my body the way it is? I don’t have to be unhappy with my body just because others think that I’m unhealthy and hurting myself.

In my opinion, when people dismiss body positivity because they believe it promotes obesity they are saying that I cannot love myself or appreciate my body until I am skinny. There are so many problems with that kind of thinking. First, the emotional and mental detriment that statements like those put people through who differ from the status quo. And secondly, it equates the word healthy with skinny. Those two words are not synonymous. So please, the next time you want to criticize the body positivity movement, hold your tongue, because you might not understand how much that person has gone through to finally say the words, “I love my body the way it is.”