All my life I've been big. I was the tallest in my class until boys had growth spurts, and I was always the chubby kid. It didn't bother me when I was really young, because when you're really young there are other, more important things to be concerned with: recess, for one, and the fact that boys have cooties. I knew I was different, but none of the other kids really seemed to care, so why should I?

But then I hit middle school -- that glorious, horrible time when everyone is self-conscious about everything, hormones are raging, and no one is really "good enough." Suddenly I was different and that was a very bad thing.

My first experience with weight shaming occurred then, in seventh grade, when one of the class bullies started calling my best friend bad names (and in seventh grade, they were really bad names). I couldn't stand by and let that happen, so I spoke up. She, like most bullies, knew right where to stab with her retort, telling me that I should go on Weight Watchers and drop some weight.

Well, that hurt. And shut me up. Mainly because, although she didn't know it -- I was so ashamed that I kept it a total secret -- I was already on Weight Watchers. I'd actually lost quite a bit of weight. But her words cancelled it all out. I was suddenly less in my own eyes because of what she said. And I can still picture that moment, standing outside of the math room, her in the doorway, me in the hall... still, eight years later. It remains seared in my memory. You don't forget the first time you felt a little less than human.

That was my first experience with weight shaming. It wasn't my last. Acts of discrimination against bigger people are usually shown in small ways, making them seem insignificant to the average person, but they happen alarmingly often. Like when I go to buy food on campus, and I get overcharged for a cupcake, even though the hockey player in front of me didn't. Or when I ask for food in the main line, and they load up half the plate with vegetables and give me the smallest portion of everything else possible. Sometimes it's not purposeful. Sometimes it's not conscious. It doesn't matter, because it still happens regularly.

We live in a society where skinny is beautiful, and "plus-sized" women are really just average sized women -- but what about me? People like me? People with wide hips and muffin tops? We aren't in the magazines. We aren't "beautiful" enough, right? We don't fit the perfect image. We have puffy cheeks and double chins, so we aren't good enough.

And maybe no one says it directly to your face. Outside of that one girl in middle school, I don't think anyone has point blank looked at me and basically called me fat. It's a ballsy thing to do; most people just aren't brave enough for it. But that doesn't mean we don't see the thoughts in your head sometimes. When I buy cookies in the lunch line, and for a brief moment the cashier looks at me like, "Do you really need that?" before the mask of happy-cashier falls back over their face, my self-esteem still takes a hit. When I walk into a store like American Eagle with my friends, a place that obviously doesn't have clothes in my size, employees and other customers always seem to glance at me funny, with a look that falls somewhere between pity and disgust: "what are you doing in a place like this?" Of course that doesn't always happen, but sometimes it does, and that's enough to always make me self-conscious. Everything about it screams, "You don't belong."

And sometimes it isn't even a direct action! That's almost worse. Like, for example, I was recently inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, which, if you don't know, is a pretty prestigious honor society. For the ceremony, we all had to wear these purple robes, so beforehand we were asked for our height. Well, when I got to the ceremony, my robe didn't fit. Because you can be 5'6'' and 150 pounds, or 5'6'' and 300 pounds, and apparently no one cares if you fall closer to option two. I have hips! Big hips! What do you want from me? If I dropped 50 pounds tomorrow I couldn't have fit in that robe. So I had to go through the whole ceremony with my robe open - the only person who had to do so -- and for awhile I was absolutely humiliated. I mean, I've lost 40 pounds in the last year in an effort to lead a healthier life, and suddenly none of it mattered. It felt like I was 12 again, standing in front of that math classroom, that bully telling me I wasn't good enough all over again.

I got over it. I always do. Oh, I'll never forget it, but I moved past it, mainly because I looked damn good that day, and that's what I'll be remembering most. But it's little things like that that drive me crazy.

And I think the worst part of weight shaming is that people really blame a person for being overweight. It's not like other kinds of shaming -- it's something you could "control." Nobody has to be overweight... I can practically see it running through people's minds: why don't you just drop a few pounds? Why can't you just go to the gym more, exercise, stop eating pie? God, eat a salad!

Well, here's what you probably don't know. I do exercise. Regularly. I eat salads (shocker, right). And damn it, if I want a piece of pie, I'm going to eat a piece of pie, because it's not my fault that some people can eat a sheet cake every week of their lives and never gain an ounce, and I eat a cookie and never seem to be able to lose it. Yeah, I make unhealthy eating choices sometimes, but so does everyone! So my body retains it more than yours does -- why does that make me less beautiful than anyone else?

In our society, skinny equals beautiful. And that has haunted me all my life. Even now, 40 pounds less than I used to be, someone can make a simple off-hand comment about fat people and I blush in embarrassment. Still! Because society teaches women that the ideal figure is an "hourglass," and that's the only vision of beautiful we get to see.

But beautiful is so much more than that. Why does it only get to be one thing, one image, one ideal? I'll never fit that image. Who really does without Photoshop? And if no one really fits that ideal image, why do we keep holding onto it? Stop judging others based on their height or weight or any other physical characteristic you can pick out. Yeah, I have big hips, and a big butt, and I've got a chubby stomach and wide arms and big boobs and even (gasp) stretch marks all over my body, and no matter how much weight I lose, I will always look like a pear because that's how God made me, and I'm okay with that. If you can't love me right now, in this moment, for every over-sized part of me, then you're missing out -- not me.

So I'm calling for an end to body shaming of any kind. The best thing about humanity is our individuality -- so why are we hating on people for being or looking different? Your body is unique! Every inch of you is different than every inch of me, and that's beauty.

Stop shaming people for their weight. And for those of you who aren't society's distorted vision of beautiful, know that your body is yours, and you should love it no matter what anyone says. You are beautiful.

Just as you are.