Since I was younger, I've always had an extremely high metabolism; my body digests food ridiculously fast. This being said, I have never had to watch my weight or be concerned about the food I was eating. One thing I was concerned about, however, was my body image. Having such a high metabolism, it's ridiculously hard to gain weight, making me skinny. Really skinny.
In general, when you think about girls who have body image issues, you think of girls who are slightly on the chubby side or even girls who have a great body, they just think they need to be thinner. Well, I'm here to tell you that skinny girls have body image issues too. I have struggled my entire life, and even to this day, loving myself the way I am. I know I can't help the way my body works and that's something that probably will never change, but it's still a daily battle.
Throughout middle school and even into high school, I would constantly have people coming up to me concerned. They would ask if I was eating or if I had some sort of eating disorder. Sometimes they would even come up to me and put their hands around my wrists, measuring them. People would constantly say to me "your wrists are so tiny!" or "have you eaten anything lately?" Once in a while, someone would come up to me offering me food, as if I hadn't eaten in days. I would come home crying, frustrated with myself and with my body. Why couldn't I be normal? I wanted curves and to go on diets with my friends and to be concerned about my calorie intake. None of that was necessary though, and at this point I'm grateful it's not.
As I have grown older, I have accepted the fact that I am indeed a skinny person. I don't have an eating disorder and I probably eat more food than an average guy in college. I've accepted that this is who I am. The media constantly drowns you in images of the "perfect body," but guess what? The perfect body doesn't exist. There is no way to determine what body shape someone should be because everyone is so vastly different. My advice to everyone is to love your body. Who cares if you have a little muffin top or if you aren't super muscular or you got some junk in the trunk. That's just one of a million amazing things that makes you different from everyone else.
I encourage everyone to not worry about what your body looks like. Comparing yourselves to others is not going to change your image, it's just going to make you feel worse about yourself. I have learned to love my body the way it is, to cherish being so tiny because let's be honest, someday all this junk food is going to catch up to me. It's not an easy process getting to this mindset. Take things one day at a time. Step by step, you will become someone who is confident in themselves and the way they look.
