"Don't you ever feed your kids?"

If my mom had a dime for every time someone asked her this when I was growing up, well, she'd have a lot of dimes. Behind my back or even to my face, through my childhood and into my teenage years, adults would proclaim me unhealthy to my mom and proceed to tell her how to feed me. My mom would laugh politely and remind them that both she and my dad used to look like that, too.

At age seven, I sat crying at my dining room table, begging my mom not to send me to swim lessons again.

"Why?" she asked.

"They make fun of me," I said.

To this day, I have a picture in my head. My swim teacher's laughing as I struggled across the pool in a noodle. "Isn't she skinny? Like a stick!"

My classmates laughed and started yelling, "She's like a stick!" It became a chant. "Stick, stick, stick!"

I learned to dread fittings, as well, especially when I reached the intermediate class in my dance school at age ten. Even though the class had 8-year-olds a good four to five inches shorter than I, my measurements were the smallest. And of course, my dance teacher, whom I loved dearly, broke my heart and proclaimed them to the room with a laugh.

I grew up in a world conscientious about bullying. But there was no social rule about bullying or laughing at the skinny kids. Obviously, something was wrong with them. And it got so bad that, like my mother before me, I thought something was wrong with me. I grew to think I had an eating disorder, because while my doctor said I was perfectly healthy, that was the answer society gave me. "0" wasn't a size, apparently. And then neither was "2." Then people started sharing things like this:

I'd bury my face in my hands as these articles and statements painted my Facebook page, buy jeans bigger than what actually fit me and eat so much food I felt sick. Yet the needle on the scale refused, and still refuses, to budge.

Some people tried to comfort me by telling me people wished they looked like me. The answer in the back of my mind was, "No, people don't want to be skinny. They want to have figures. And I don't have one."

My more overweight friends were encouraged and told they were beautiful by society. Me? I was told things like, "Guys don't like skinny girls," "Go eat more protein," and "Are you anorexic?"

There are other girls, some of whom I am good friends with, who struggle with the same situation for different reasons. For some, it's their genetic makeup. For others, it's a food allergy. And for others, it's just a super high metabolism. For me, it's all three.

There is some awareness rising on the internet about so-called "skinny-shaming." But part of me is sick of all of the different terminology for weight issues. It's as if we have to have a label for bullying for every label of figure.

Look, I understand that eating disorders are a real problem. I understand that bullying directed at those perceived as overweight is also a real problem. But you don't solve anything when, to make one group feel better, you make another group suffer socially.

Personally, I think it'd just be better if we watched what we said and stopped being concerned with other people's weight. It's not our business. We're not their doctor nor their nutritionist and what worked for you may not work for them. I say this because, I feel like not everyone who makes us feel guilty for our weight is like those kids who yelled at me at the pool. They're not looking to be playground bullies, necessarily. Most times, what made me upset was the slip of a well-intentioned tongue. So my two cents to the world that picks on what's perceived as abnormal is this: assumptions don't help anyone. Broadcasting your assumptions because you think you know better is even less helpful. Telling me I need to gain weight or telling another person they need to lose weight isn't helpful because we're actually very aware of that.

I'm not asking you to lie to make people feel better, either. Instead, compliment them on something unrelated to their weight. It makes a world of difference and it's not hard to do at all.

And please remember, 0 actually is a size for some of us. We can't help it.

To my fellow skinny girls, you're beautiful. Just smile and nod at the talkers. When life gets you down, eat more ice cream (because we all know the real perk to being skinny is being able to eat more ice cream!).