The summer of my 16th year, right before I started my junior year of high school, I developed an eating disorder. Honestly, I'm still not entirely sure how this happened. For four out of my five years of high school (my school started at eighth grade) I ran cross country and for the entire five years I played soccer, both sports you need to be fairly fit to do successfully. Truthfully, I never had the most stamina, which is pretty important for cross country, and I attributed this to not being very skinny like the rest of my teammates. So I gradually started eating less and less, and soon developed what is known as binge-eating disorder, which is basically when you don't eat for a few days and then when you do eat you overeat. I was never diagnosed, because no one in my family knew so I never went to a doctor for it. It got really bad though; the worst I remember it being is one day I just passed out in the shower and was shaking when I woke up. I have mostly gotten over it, but there are moments when I still cry from looking at myself in the mirror, and I still have days where I just don't eat or eat very little.

With the rise and overuse of photoshop, its becoming a very dangerous world for developing young girls. You pick up the latest People magazine or Vogue and there are these impossibly skinny girls on the cover. Victoria's Secret Angels are held as the pinnacle of "what a woman should look like" and realistically that body shape is not healthy nor even attainable for most women. We are slowly evolving into a culture that says that we have to do whatever we can to be skinny, because if we aren't skinny then we aren't pretty. And I'm sorry, that is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard. All women are beautiful, I don't care if you weigh 90 pounds or 240. If you are living at a weight that is healthy for your body type, that is amazing. I am so tired of hearing "boys like skinny girls, boys like girls with curves" because one, I don't care, and two, you can't have everything. It is so hard to attain and keep up a body shape that is both stick skinny and curvy, and honestly it's just not very healthy on the physical level or mental level. Having an eating disorder does not just mess with your body, it also can do some serious damage to your psyche. Imagine having a voice in your head telling you that you aren't skinny enough, you aren't pretty enough, you aren't good enough. It is the most difficult thing I have ever dealt with.

The most frustrating thing I see about eating disorders is how glorified they have become in recent years. If you go on Instagram or Tumblr, you can scroll through a "thinspo" tag, which is literally pictures of people with thigh gaps and tips on how to eat less and trick your body into being full. And it is so infuriating. These websites, and I understand its not the websites themselves but the users, paint it in such a romantic light, like its beautiful to be depressed and hate the way you look. If there is one thing it is not, it's beautiful. It is not beautiful to cry at the sight of your nude body, and it is not beautiful to be awake at 2:30 in the morning with hunger pains because all you had to eat that day was some cucumber slices. Starving yourself because you think it will make a boy or a girl like you is not romantic, its unhealthy. Back in 2009, supermodel Kate Moss caused controversy with her statement, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels," which, again pardon my language, is bullshit. This, along with the rise of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie circa 2004, popularized eating disorders and made them look fashionable. I can't stress how serious this is, and how dangerous it is. It isn't cool, it isn't romantic, it isn't fashionable. It's deadly.