Growing up, I had always been the thin one. When people try to describe me to somebody that does not know me, the first thing they say is, "Look for the really skinny girl!" I am regularly stopped by people who ask me how much I weigh, what size my pants are, or if I am on a vegetarian diet. Some other things that I often heard? "You need to eat about five hamburgers." "Boys don't like bones — eat!" "I want to be skinny, but not as skinny as you... no offense." Others have been kinder. I have always been told that I could be a model, mainly because today's fashion industry is so engrossed with thin girls. Even this had been offensive to me at one point in time, as I knew that many people associated thin models with being unnatural and even sickly.

Although I heard comments like these, even as a small child, it wasn't until I was in the fifth grade that these words began to take a toll on the way that I perceived myself. Almost right after I turned eleven, my family moved to a different state and I began the second semester of fifth grade at a brand new school. It was a difficult adjustment for someone who had always been on the shyer side. In addition to starting a new life in middle school, which was hard in itself, fifth grade is conveniently the year that many girls begin to take great notice in appearance. I remember one day in particular, I came home from school and asked my mother if I was bulimic. She looked very surprised before she assured me that I was not. She then asked me, "How do you know what that is?" I answered, "Somebody at school told me that I was."

Looking back on that day, I feel appalled. Here was a serious disorder that affects people of all body types being thrown around as an assumption, an excuse for why a human being could look differently than others. Later, many people would also go on to call me anorexic. Although many people would ask me the size of my jeans because they were genuinely curious, others would only use it as an excuse to make me feel bad for the way that I look naturally. When it came to these people, my answer would always be met with a scornful face and a rude comment. It is here that I will say it is generally inappropriate to ask anybody what their measurements are, regardless of what their body type may be.

I spent much of my adolescence finding different ways to come to terms with the way that I looked. At first, I would try to give people answers that they would want to hear. I would make a big point that I hated my body too, that I tried to eat a lot so that I could get bigger and look normal. At that point in time, I did not hate my body, nor was I trying to alter it. I only wanted to quiet the negative voices surrounding me. Later, I went on to actually despise my body. When I agreed with people that I was too thin, I meant it. I would have changed how I looked like entirely if I could have. This made me a nastier person. Because I thought it was okay to be unkind to myself, it automatically made it okay for me to be unkind to others. If somebody hurt my feelings, I could defend myself and hurt them as well. It was counterproductive in that I failed to realize that the only people who would say something to purposefully hurt me, were the same people that were already struggling with themselves. The old saying "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" was very applicable to the way I treated others at that point in my life.

This stage went on for much longer than I would like to admit. It wasn't until I stepped back and saw the way that many other people think of themselves that I began to stop caring so much about how I looked, and start caring about the way others are treated. Admittedly, this hadn't happened until somewhat recently and is still a work in progress even to this day. To say that I am completely happy with the way that I look and that I am always positive and supportive of other people would be a bold lie. But now, I have come to accept and appreciate the way that my body looks. I may have not gotten to choose it, but neither has anybody else. The thing that has helped me the most? Celebrating the differences and beauty in each person that I meet. I'm not perfect at it yet, but now that I recognize how special each person that I meet is, I am beginning to see how special that I am, too. We all have imperfections and perfections, and the key to body acceptance for all, is being met with warmth and encouragement from others.