Healthy and Happy

When I was a little girl, I never thought much about what I looked like and what others thought of me. I would wear stretchy pants with crazy flower patterns with a striped shirt with no matching colors whatsoever. My hair was hardly ever combed, always knotted, with who knows what stuck in it. (A mother can only do so much for a wild child). But this crazy lifestyle of mine didn't last long. And what I mean by that is the outlook I had on myself changed. Sure I still wore crazy clothes and never did my hair, but I began to realize that people had opinions of me: negative opinions of me. I began to realize that I wasn't the smallest in my class, the prettiest in my class, or the skinniest in my class. I thought of myself as the thick girl that was more like a boy (because apparently girls can't scrape their knees while climbing trees and trying to catch weird-looking insects). When I hit my chubby years, like most girls do, all I would see in the mirror was the extra fat on my cheeks and the extra curves on my thighs, hips, and stomach. Without even realizing it, all I wanted was to lose weight and be considered beautiful by those around me. The saddest part of this story is I was never unhealthy during any point and definitely not considered overweight at any level in terms of BMI and other measurements. But I felt like I was overweight, that I wasn't small enough, or pretty enough. During my junior year of high school I finally began losing weight. But not by choice. At first I was ecstatic! This was exactly what I wanted. People started noticing and commenting on how good I looked and how much healthier I looked. They had the nerve to tell me I looked healthier when I was perfectly healthy before! But, I believed every word. I was healthier and prettier! Boys started noticing me as a women and not just a friend. It was incredible to finally have positive feedback from people. But it didn't stop there. I kept losing weight. And I started getting sick. At the end of my junior year, and after visiting doctors and having blood tests, I was put on antibiotics. The pain went away for a short time, but after about a month into my senior year I was missing nearly one day of school per week on average (to top that off our school only met four times a week). My grades started dropping, and the pain became more frequent and less tolerable. I saw three doctors and had three procedures with minuscule results. They knew everything it wasn't, but they found a stomach infection while they were at it, so why not put me on antibiotics anyways right?! Fortunately for me, the pain decreased and it seemed as though the majority of the problem was fixed. Like any good story, it couldn't end here! A year later I struggled again. The doctors still don't know what's wrong. But why am I telling you this? I was skinny. And I also became unhealthy. Although I was not the one to chose this, I know many of you out there look in the mirror and see something distorted and try to change the way you look by making unwise decisions. Don't do it. There is a difference being being healthy and being skinny. Societies view might not change as quickly as yours does, but yours needs to change! I lost 45 pounds within about a year and I have struggled for nearly four years now just to gain back ten of those pounds. And every pound I gain I shout for joy. Not only because it's closer to where I was before, but because it means I'm gaining strength and becoming healthier. It has not been fun, and the body wasn't even worth it. Even after I had lost all that weight I would find myself unsatisfied: I still was too big, not skinny enough! It took several of my dear family and friends to help me see the ribs that were showing. It was then that I realized I didn't want to be skinny. I wanted to be healthy. Girls (and boys), please, PLEASE, stop thinking that you need to be skinny. Skinny is not what you need to be. Healthy is what you be. I know it's too much to ask you to be like the little girl I was and not give a darn about what people thought because I know I'm not like that anymore, but please, please see the beauty in yourselves. Being skinny will not make you happy, but being healthy will, no matter what size you are.