Let me start this piece off by letting you know that I do not, and never have suffered from an eating disorder. This writing is inspired by dear friends of mine who have battled them, and also for those who struggle with this and deserve to have a voice to tell their stories and their struggles. I feel that bringing awareness to any type of disorder, whether it be physical or mental, is important so that we can better love and understand our neighbors. Also, so that if you find yourself struggling with something similar, you can understand that you’re never alone.

All the information I’m using for this article comes straight from the mouths of survivors.

Eating disorders are highly misinterpreted. I hear people throw around phrases about them all the time, that could not be more inaccurate. “That girl wears a size two; she’s like, anorexic.” Let me tell you why this is completely and totally wrong. Because “anorexic” isn’t a clothing size. It’s not a petite girl with a small frame. It’s not an insult you can throw around to girls who aren’t built with lots of meat on their bones. It IS however, a battle. Mentally and physically alike. It is an obsession, and an addiction. It’s a sickness, built off of the pressure to meet this society’s impossible beauty standards.

Most eating disorders start off small and gradually build into a disorder. Sometimes, even if you tell someone they look physically good and skinny, the voices in their head just overpower the compliments. In one of my friend’s cases, there was never an actual goal. There wasn’t a certain weight or size that would ever be “good enough” for her to stop at. She just wanted to keep losing weight, and that was what put her mind at ease. For some people, they can’t stop or see that there is a problem until medical emergencies come into play. For my friend, it was seizures, but there are a variety of other ailments that can occur. Fainting, dizziness, dehydration, constipation, missed periods, a failed metabolism, loss of hair. Those are just the symptoms of starving yourself, in cases like anorexia (an emotional disorder characterized by an obsessive desire to lose weight by refusing to eat). If you were to be a bulimic (an emotional disorder involving distortion of body image and an obsessive desire to lose weight, in which bouts of extreme overeating are followed by depression and self-induced vomiting, purging, or fasting), some of the major medical issues attached would be enamel erosion in your teeth, gum disease, esophageal cancer, ruptures, heart disease, stroke, and pregnancy complications. It’s a very dangerous thing, physically alone.

Mentally, it’s just as gruesome. There is self loathing, anxiety, and lots of pressure to be flawless. There’s lots of thoughts that run through one’s mind telling them that they aren’t good enough, in different levels of extremity. They develop a very distorted view of themselves, and fight to make that go away. The constant comparisons to beauty standards drive them to impulsive workouts, and lack of eating. It would be really insincere for me to try to articulate the emotional toll eating disorders have on people, considering I’ve never experienced one, but I’ve pulled some direct quotes from some of my friends who have, to provide perspective. Someone very close to me described it in just one sentence, "I thought it was just my food I was throwing away. Turns out I was throwing away my feelings too." Another person spoke up and described it as this. “It really is an all consuming loneliness. And you constantly feel the burden of your secret every day.”

I wish I could squash all of the impossible beauty standards that society has set us up with today. It seems like everyone has one version of beauty that is “correct” and all the other ones fall short. On one hand, you have models who walk the runway who are all repeatedly size zeros, helping us to form the belief that that is what beauty looks like, and that a size 6 is wretched. Then we have songs on the radio talking about how girls who have a “thicker” frame are the new thing and skinny girls aren’t. It seems like you don’t see anyone embracing a certain body type, without shutting another one down. There are clothing lines who distort clothes sizes. There’s endless comparisons between people, countless tabloids shaming celebrities “beach bodies”. It’s honestly everywhere, and it feels inescapable. While I’ve never suffered from an eating disorder, I can definitely understand how one could easily develop one.

The truth is, that this society has it all wrong. Every human being is different from the next one, and every person is beautiful. Every person is unique, and I think that the contrasts should be embraced because this world would be awfully boring if we all looked the same. “Ugly” is a myth. No one is ugly, that simply does not exist. There is no “right” size or body type to be. There is just our bodies. All different and all magnificent. Our bodies are lovely, but they are just shells for our souls. Let’s squash all of these negative body image stigmas. Let’s compliment each other, and appreciate each other’s bodies. Victoria’s Secret Angels can be beautiful, but that does not take away from the beauty that is you. Her size zero doesn’t take away from your cute freckles, and your size 10 doesn’t take away from her beautiful eyes. There is more than one kind of beautiful; come to think of it, there are infinite versions of beautiful.

“Chasing the lie of perfect will leave you perpetually grasping at the future, rather than living your present life.” Let’s spread that.