Since I was a kid, I have always been small, skinny and short. If we ever had to line up from shortest to tallest in elementary school, I was always at the front of the line. Parents and teachers thought I was the cutest thing, but as I grew up opinions changed.
Middle school is everyone’s most awkward years; it’s when puberty starts to hit and everyone’s bodies change. This is especially true for girls. Suddenly the focus wasn’t on me, but on my friends. They began to wear bras and change sizes in clothes, and boys started to notice them over me. My friends would joke about my size and would use me as an arm rest and say things like “how’s it going down there?” It just wasn’t fair as to why I wasn’t growing and changing like my friends, and I got frustrated.
By the time high school came around I was still the same: small, skinny and short. It was embarrassing that I was in high school and couldn’t fit into a junior’s size until my sophomore year. This was when people’s opinions changed. It wasn’t how cute I was, but more of “do you even eat”, “look how small her wrists are”, “you got to put some meat on those bones”, and many other unfriendly comments from teachers and parents around. It made me feel uncomfortable in my own skin because I did eat, a lot, and I didn’t have control over where it was going in my body. I didn’t like being compared to my friends. I didn’t like being skinny. All these words, that people would tell me all the time, hurt. Sure they may have been joking around but it made me look in the mirror and be unhappy with my body.
After 22 years, I finally realized that I shouldn’t feel insecure about my body, and that I should just own it. The name calling that I grew up with hurt. People may not think that they are offending someone by saying “put some meat on those bones”, but would you tell someone that is a little overweight to “go workout” because they are a few sizes bigger than you? You may not think those are the same things but they are. The name calling to anyone about their body type whether it be big or small, short or tall is never okay. They could be struggling behind closed doors and saying comments that you don’t think are hurtful could be what is upsetting them inside. We all have different lives and different stories. Being a size zero is okay and being a size 12 is okay too. It doesn’t matter what the inside of your jeans say, as long as you rock those jeans from the outside.
