As a teenage girl, it can be difficult to feel confident about your body a majority of the time. In fact, I know many girls my age who have body-image issues and it’s upsetting to see how common it is. I admit to being one of these girls and so I recently tried to trace back to where these self-esteem issues originated from.

Deep down I’ve always thought of myself as a bigger girl, so I wanted to know when I started thinking this about myself. That’s when I remembered; I was on a soccer team when I was younger and the coach of that team always referred to me as “big girl.” This was always meant as a term of endearment, never meant to offend me or make me uncomfortable in any way. I was also the tallest and oldest girl on the team, so it only made sense that I was the one who received this nickname.

But in reality I never took this nickname lightly; I immediately began to think of myself as bigger than the average girl, something that made me uncomfortable in my own skin. I took this nickname quite literally and every time I looked in the mirror I was instantly uncomfortable and disappointed. I was a “big girl,” and I believed it for the majority of my life until now.

I thought my soccer coach was just being honest and trying in the nicest way possible to say I was overweight for a 9-year-old. So I tried to hide myself from everyone I knew. I remember being so uncomfortable with my body that I only wore large t-shirts and basketball shorts from 4th grade-6th grade. Every time I wanted to go swimming I would wear an oversized shirt into the pool.

Throughout my teen years, I didn’t appreciate my body, I disliked my body and pretty much everything about it. I was constantly comparing myself to other people. I especially compared myself to my closest friends; again most of them being petite girls much shorter than myself. I felt such a strong embarrassment all because of one remark that someone made years ago, with no intention to offend me.

It has taken me too long to finally feel confident and to let go of that image that came from being called “big girl” a few times a week when I was nine years old. My friends and family have been such an important part of letting go of that image. I know that there is quite a long way to feeling 100% confident in my own skin but it’s frustrating knowing that what crushed my self-esteem so long ago was a simple nickname. This has only shown me that words matter so much more than we realize; anything we say can be misconstrued and stick with someone for far longer than it will stick with us after we say it.

I don’t let that nickname get to me the way it used to. However it will always be something that greatly impacted how I viewed myself for too long. The only way I was able to move on was by working harder to ensure I didn’t fit that image, to make sure I was as happy as possible with my body as I get older. If I have control over one thing in this world it’s my body and my perception of my body. So while other people may say things that I deem hurtful, they can’t bother me if I don’t them, because it really only matters what I think of myself.