You are beautiful right now, the way you are. Now that we've established that we should know that throughout history and the world, beauty has been defined in various different ways and has always been associated with physical appearance. For example, in 1870 someone who was rather overweight was considered beautiful and attractive. In the Kayan tribe near Thailand having a significantly long neck is considered beautiful. Today in America and most of Europe being considerably skinny is deemed beautiful. Therefore, we must understand that each of us is beautiful in our own way.

Keeping this in mind, we can see how there is no set characteristic on how you have to look to be beautiful. Skinny can be beautiful and so can a little weight; black skin can be beautiful and so can white skin.

This is where many will advocate that because there is no true standard for beauty you don't have to change the way you look to fit your society's standards of beauty. In other words: you must love the way you are, you don't have to change.

In a way I agree with this. However, it doesn't really matter what I think. Let's look at the facts.

Both underweight and obese people compose a large number of people in the United States. In 2010, 1.7 percent of US adults 20 years or older was underweight. It might not seem like much, but that is roughly around 37 million people (almost the population of California). Obesity is more prevalent and approximately 68 percent of the US adult population is obese or overweight. That's two out of every three adults in the US population!

Both being underweight and obese can lead to serious and sometimes fatal diseases in the future. Being underweight has been associated with osteoporosis, anaemia, and being more likely to acquire an infection; similarly, being obese has been associated with coronary heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.

Yet we continue to tell people that loving themselves means not changing.

The reality is that loving yourself means taking care of yourself. If a family member or close friend was doing something they liked, but you know is damaging them, wouldn't you stop them? Then in the same way you must love yourself enough to care about your health.

It's not about fitting someone's standard of beauty or doing what society wants us to do. It's about you loving yourself enough to take care of your body and your future.I tell you this because just as someone showed me that loving myself meant taking care of myself I want for you to understand that as well. It's not easy, but it's worth it.