If you look at the media today, there's a wide disparity in the body types depicted in magazines and on TV. While most of the population does not see their size represented or easily available in stores, I face the opposite problem. I see skinny women, like myself, everywhere. However, that does not mean I'm happy or comfortable with my size.

Ever since middle school, I've been known as the resident skinny girl amongst my friends. I've worn a size 0 or 00, depending on the brand, since the 5th grade. I even still have the jeans I wore to every middle school party ever - well worn, with holes in the knees, and a perfect fit on my waist. I can walk into any store and find my size, open any magazine and see women with similar waistlines and see familiar sizes on popular TV shows. However, that doesn't stop the body issues I've struggled with ever since middle school.

Although my size is everywhere, I feel judgement about my small stature coming from all directions. It began in middle school when the rest of my class began to grow and I stayed the same. It got to the point that people began spreading rumors about eating disorders that I supposedly had in order to remain so thin. With the media screaming in one ear about how I'm the perfect image, the real world shouted in the other that I should be ashamed of my absurdly thin frame.

I can remember going through high school with struggles to size my choir gown, to alter my theatre costumes and even to find a prom dress. Most stores only carried as low as a 2 and they would slip right down my ribs. I ended up borrowing a dress and being so afraid. I tied the corset as tight as it would go only to almost faint in the middle of prom. It got to the point that as I approached college, I feared that the whispers and rumors that had been following me for the past 8 years would return.

In college, my weight wasn't focused on. I found incredible friends who understood that fitness did not match size and that my weight was not the most important thing about me. During a course where we discussed body image, I wrote a series of poems about my conflicted body image views: the perfect body of the media versus a body that women nearly kill themselves for, and I have, effortlessly. A body that I still do not want.

Though I've come to accept my body, I still do not love my body. Whether it's people commenting on my crop tops or my skinny jeans or the tight dresses I wear, I cannot accept the harsh words people use to describe my body. I can barely accept seeing the bones jutting out from my ribs or my hips or my clavicle because of what people said about me over 10 years ago. Even worse, I'm told that my inability to love my body is unacceptable.

While some women are working towards body positivity of all sizes, there is a small population of skinny shaming. It is not perceived to be as damaging as fat shaming, but as someone who has suffered for 12 years, I can tell you that it is. When I go out with friends, I am judged if I eat a salad because what am I doing, I'm already thin. I'm judged if I eat a burger because what, am I just bragging now? I'm judged if I wear revealing clothing because yes, they get it, I'm skinny. I'm judged if I wear sweats and baggy clothes because with a body like that I should show it off! I'm judged if I go to the gym because why would you do that, you're so fit! I'm judged if I sit on the couch all day because if you did that, you'd gain three pounds. You can say that skinny shaming isn't a major issue, but it has caused a self-hate that I cannot erase no matter how hard I try.

It's come to the point that some days, I struggle to eat healthy and treat my body right because it already looks the way society tells me to. It's come to the point that some days, I over-exercise and forget to eat because I'm skinny and am afraid to be anything but. It's come to the point that I can't look at old photos of my body because I either want to look exactly that way again or I'm disgusted by how slight I look compared to anyone else. It's come to the point I don't know how to act because of the double standard I have been exposed to and try to hold myself up to.

I hope as I continue to grow, I can learn to love my body. I hope that as society grows, we, as a whole, can learn to love men and women in all shapes and sizes. I hope the media, runway, magazine and television can all learn to broadcast women in all sizes without commenting on that tidbit that doesn't really matter in the greater scheme of things. I hope that little girls, big or small, won't worry about whether their jeans are too tight or too loose because they are beautiful no matter what.

And I wish that someone could have told 12-year-old me that it was okay my jeans always needed a belt, even though it was the smallest size available, and that my school skirt almost wrapped around my waist twice, instead of crying in the school bathroom. I wish someone had told 15-year-old me that I shouldn't worry about whether or not my prom dress would slip while dancing because my friends made sure to tell me, instead of letting anxiety and fear drive what I wore. I wish someone had told 18-year-old me that I shouldn't be afraid to write that poem series about body image because my class responded with love and support and it was published in the literary magazine, instead of shaking with tears in my eyes and a heart about to explode.

I wish so many things could have gone different, but if it had, I might not be on the road from accepting to loving my body that I travel down today. A road that I hope everyone will take so we can meet at the finish line.