The bodies of women are constantly being scrutinized. You can't be too big, you can't be too skinny, too tall, too short, or too curvy. And those simple facts make it difficult enough to be a woman and to love your body. The bodies of women who are athletes are scrutinized even more.

As a woman, it’s hard to look in the mirror when I get up in the morning, decide I’m satisfied with my body, and be done with it. As a woman, I don’t want to consider what other people will think of my body. But I do it anyway.

As an athlete, I would love to end it at, “I love the way I look.” But I can’t. Because in addition to being like every other woman, concerned about what the world will think, I have other people to please. And at least three different standards to measure myself by.

As an athlete, it goes beyond my fear of what others will think. Because as a college athlete, the way I look must please my coach, my trainer, and the rest of my team. If it doesn’t, I’m not doing my job. And I could be "fired."

As a woman, I am supposed to be curvy, but not too curvy. I should have a flat stomach, but I shouldn’t be too skinny. My skin should constantly look flawless, but I shouldn’t wear too much makeup because that’s trashy. I should have a thigh gap, and my butt should be big. But not too big. My chest shouldn’t be flat, but if my breasts are too big, I won’t be considered thin anymore. I shouldn't eat as much as my male friends do, but I should be able to eat a burger and fries and not gain a pound.

As an athlete, I should be strong, but not too strong, because too much muscle mass will make me look "manly." I should look good in my uniform so that fans will come to games, but I shouldn’t be so tiny that I don’t “look like an athlete.” My body should be able to sustain high intensity energy for hours of practice, workouts, and games, but I should be careful about the three pounds I’m going back and forth with, because athletes shouldn’t carry extra weight. I should eat lean meals, like salads, to maintain competition weight, but when we go into overtime, I better be just as fresh as I was during the first minute.

It’s impossible to be both of these ideals and still love myself and maintain my mental and psychological health. It has become a question of how to be both a woman and an athlete. How do I balance all the things I’m being told about how my body should look? Which is depressing, because the identities of woman and athlete should not rest on the way we look.

And this doesn’t end when you go pro. In fact, it probably gets worse. Millions of people watch you compete and criticize you for the way you look, often completely ignoring the successes you’ve earned.

Every year, ESPN Magazine releases a series of Body Issue covers and stories. These are profiles of athletes that are always coupled with quotes, in-depth interviews, and most recognizably, naked action shots. This year, just like every year, professional athletes and Olympians from all different sports are showing readers what athletes' bodies really look like.

And just like every year, the female athletes are attracting a lot of attention. Looking back at previous years, the female athletes are beautiful. Because, for the record, there is absolutely no ideal or perfect body. Every woman’s body is beautiful.

But one thing that strikes me as a female athlete is that most of the male athletes featured are photographed to amplify their wide frames and massive muscles.

Most women are photographed to highlight how small they are.

Which makes no sense, because in order to be successful in a lot of sports, you have to be particularly big. You have to be powerful and covered in muscle, and you have to have some weight in reserve to keep you going when you’re tired. I’m not saying that the truly small female athletes aren’t strong and accomplished and capable. It just seems very one-sided to leave out the women who make careers out of exemplifying these muscular traits. Which brings me to some of the women photographed this year.

Amanda Bingson is an American hammer thrower. She is a record holder in the U.S., and she went to the Olympics in 2012. Bingson is planning on being in the 2016 Olympics and talks in her profile about body image and how comfortable she is with how she looks, calling herself “dense.”

“I’ll be honest,” Bingson says, “I like everything about my body… You might be prettier and skinnier than me, but I’ll kick your ass in a game of one-on-one.”

Olympic heptathlete, Chantae McMillan, is another female athlete featured in BODY2015, and in addition to talking about her many successes and how she gets ready to compete, she talks about loving food and loving her body. “I don’t look in the mirror and think ‘slim,’” McMillan says, “I look in the mirror and I’m like, ‘Woah, beast!’”

These women are incredible athletes. They’re not small. They’re powerfully built. And that is what allows them to be successful. In terms of merging their body images with the ideas of woman and athlete, they remind female athletes everywhere that there is no mold to fit in to. They are beautiful just as they are.

Women come in all shapes and sizes, and all of them are beautiful. Athletes come in all shapes and sizes, and their worth as athletes should be dictated by how well their bodies serve them in their sports, not by how big or small they are.

For me, and for athletes everywhere, professional athletes should be an inspiration—not based on how they look, but on how they compete, and how they love their own bodies for what they are, not what anyone else says they should be.

It’s time to decode the paradox that is how to juggle looking like a woman and looking like a successful female athlete. The answer is simple. If you’re a woman, you look like a woman. If you’re a successful female athlete, you look like a successful female athlete. And you look beautiful.