Every new year when the clock strikes 12, millions of people kiss their loved ones, say “goodbye” to the previous year and make their New Year’s Resolutions. Like most people, I make a resolution, but I seldom stick to it.

Everyone has their own resolutions that they’d like to achieve by the end of the year. But the most common resolution is losing weight and getting fit. Between Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas coming one right after the other, food babies have overstayed their welcome and people are working hard to get rid of them.

You know the whole scenario: you sign up for a membership and workout until your body feels like jelly every day. The gym is overcrowded, full of people who are getting their summer bodies ready. By the time mid-February rolls around, the gym is practically a wasteland and this seems to happen every year.

I can’t say I have ever had a good relationship with my body. I remember going to Weight Watchers meetings with my mom at the age of ten. Pediatricians not believing me when I told them what I ate in a day, because they insisted I was eating more than I let on. Going to the gym, but feeling so self-conscious that everyone was staring at me, that I hid in the bathroom and read whatever book I brought with me that day. It’s still and anxiety that I have today, so much so that I prefer to work out at home. But what I went through is nothing new, A 2015 study showed that 80% of girls have already been on a diet by the time they turn 10. More than 50% of girls and 1/3 of boys ages 6 to 8 would like to be thinner. It’s hard thing to fathom, that kids that young are already aware of their bodies. But it’s a behavior that parents should pay attention to. Especially since it's a behavior that kids learn from watching their parents.

A few days before New Years’ when I was looking at pictures of myself from a few years ago. I was working out every day, I was between a size eight and ten, which was an achievement, because, at my heaviest I was a size sixteen. I looked good… not that I don’t look good now (even though I don't feel like that all the time).

But when I was looking at the pictures, I came to the realization that even though I was in the best shape I had ever been, at the time I didn’t see the progress I had made. I still saw what was wrong with my body. Or at least what I thought was wrong with my body. And I thought to myself, will I ever be happy? It didn't matter how much I worked out, the work that had to be done needed to start on the inside.

I don’t remember having an issue with my body before the fourth grade. It was during that time that I transferred schools. The bullying didn’t happen immediately, but when it did, it was constant. But looking back now, I was never fat, I was just bigger than the skinny girls at school. So that’s where my warped sense of self started, where I began to believe that I was bigger than I was. I remember falling down the stairs and having the kids around me laugh and call it an "earthquake". I remember pretending to be sick as much as I could so that I could leave school early or not go to school at all. It’s a wonder that I even passed the sixth grade.

The bullying didn’t stop at school however. When I was around twelve I was at a family barbeque, and I was asked by a family member to not jump on the diving board because my weight could break it. It was said to me privately, but the embarrassment I felt in that moment is something I’ll never forget. The healthy weight of a twelve-year old is anywhere from 90- 120 lbs. I was tall for my age and weighed around 140. I had developed early, and took after my dad’s side of the family: bigger thighs, butt, and a slow metabolism. That same relative would ask me if I should be eating certain things at more family functions, and made jabs about my weight up until I was seventeen. Now, at 26, I’m still very conscious about what I eat around them, just in case they say something else. As I got older, my body began to even out. But the things that were said to me by my peers, and by someone that should never make a little girl feel worse than she already did, stay with me. They could be reading this right now and have no idea that I’m talking about them.

I don’t know how much I weigh, all I know is that I’m between a size ten and twelve. The scale scares me, not because of the number it will say, but because I know it will become a compulsion. A compulsion to take my weight every single day. To make sure I lost something and not gained, because if I gain anything, that would most likely mean that I will be very meticulous with what I eat, and not in a healthy way. The same goes for days when I don’t work out. Questions like “Can I eat this?” “Will my stomach get bigger if I eat this right now?” Food that would typically be enjoyed by others, is a guilt trip for me.

I'm aware of these problems, and that's why, this year, I'm making the conscious effort to love myself. I've been so focused on the external, that I lose focus on the internal. And with the media out there telling us how we should look, or the latest fitness crazy, it's easy to lose yourself. I'm still going to make a point to work out, but I'm not going to make that my sole focus. It's going to take a long time to build myself back up, but I think this will be my best resolution yet.