Last week I traveled to Seattle around my birthday and made the essential tourist stop at Pike's Place market. While the market was amazing, the views were beautiful, and the food was utterly delicious, the bathrooms, specifically the people in them, left little to be desired. While waiting in line I encountered four girls, around 13 years old, comparing their abs and bodies to one another, and I immediately was disgusted and sad.

To the girls in the bathroom:

You don't know me, and you would never remember me, but I watched you compare your bodies with your friends. You lifted your shirts and examined each other in the mirror deciding who had the better set of abs and the flatter stomach. You saw it as something fun, and something to be proud of, but I don't see it that way. I see it as something to be worried about, after all why must you decide who has the best body parts when in reality you all have the best bodies, because without your bodies you wouldn't be who you are. I was ashamed to see how you wanted to have flat stomachs like all of the models on the magazines you grew up with and all of those movie stars on the red carpet. I was ashamed for society and the "perfect body" culture that is starting younger and younger. I'm scared because if you already think that your body isn't as good as another's, it will only mean a life of low self-esteem, low self-confidence, and low self-worth. Trust me I know, as one who grew up believing my body wasn't perfect, and that it was flawed, and compared myself to others. It didn't get me anywhere, and it never will.

To you, that girl who didn't lift your shirt:

I know your struggle, I too hated my body and would never show off my stomach, so I understand. I understand what its like to compare yourself to your friends and find that you don't think you're the pretty one, I understand how you feel out of place in pictures with them, and I understand when you try your best and put on the cutest clothes, and you still feel like it's not enough. It's never enough. Nothing you do will ever be enough, and all you see when you look in the mirror is how your stomach isn't as flat as your friend's, and your arms aren't as toned as theirs. Even if you didn't do the comparing, you still did it in your head, thinking of your own stomach and then feeling the sense of despair, knowing there is no way you could ever compare to them.

Your body is more than how it looks:

I know that none of you compared yourselves on purpose to make other people feel bad about their own bodies, but the next time you have the urge to compare the thickness of your thighs, or the size of your chest, please remember that you are beautiful and you are different. You will never be anyone else but yourself, and your body is your own. It isn't your friend's, it isn't that model's on the cover. No matter how much work you do, no matter how much you diet, it will never be the same, and that's a good thing. Our bodies are our individuality, and they give us the ability to walk and be with friends, or to taste delicious food, and arms to give hugs to those we love. This is what your body does. And what it looks like? Well, I believe that should be the last thing on your minds right now.