Age 23

Like Her Momma
I was watching the Tyra Show this afternoon and it was an episode about young girls that hated what their face looked like. They had the mothers of these young girls on the show as well, and it was said that if the mother didn't like how she looked, the daughter would internalize that feeling and manifest it. "If Momma looks in the mirror and criticizes herself, her daughter would do the same, like her Momma.”

Sitting there on the couch watching this show, it hit me. I think my mother is a very pretty woman. She keeps herself up well, her makeup and hair always looks nice, and she dresses well for her body.
But it wasn't always this way. She used to be quite overweight and that is how I remember her for most of my childhood years. My father would be extremely focused on her appearance and constantly put her down because of how she looked. And I hated him for it. For years, I could barely talk to him or be around him because of the way he treated my mother. And I secretly felt paranoid every time I cracked open a pint of Ben & Jerry's or helped myself to seconds at dinner because I felt he was watching me with that internal disapproval - the same disapproval he looked at my mother with.

So I became an exercise addict for most of my high school years and did not eat well at all. I would starve myself during the day, go to track practice and work out hard, then come home and eat dinner like maniac because my body was so deprived. Oftentimes I would stay up late at night and binge eat as well. It didn't help that my sister had gone through this very same cycle a couple years before, so I felt like I wasn't being abnormal.

But I hated myself and my body. I'd look in the mirror and loathe what I saw, even if to everyone else I was a completely normal, healthy weight. I was obsessive about myself, all because of how my father treated my mother. She tried to lose weight and took a lot of crap from my dad over the years, and I admire the heck out of her for that. She is an incredibly strong woman today and has come a LONG way from where she was. I'm so proud of her.

It makes me realize that as a woman and a mother in future years, I need to be so careful of how I treat myself because my daughters will follow my example. The last thing I want is for them to feel what I felt about myself. It's taken some time, but I have started to accept and love my body for what God made it to be...healthy and not legalistic. To move my body and exercise, not because it will make me lose weight, but because I love how I feel when I'm done. I still have "fat days" like any woman and just want to curl up in sweatpants on the couch. But then I have to remind myself - beauty comes in so many different shapes, sizes, skin tones, lip sizes, hair colors and textures...and I want my daughter to someday look in the mirror, see her flaws and all, and think she's beautiful, like her Momma.

"You are not your bra-size, nor are you the width of your waist or the slenderness of your calves. You are not the amount of sit-ups you can do, nor are you the amount of calories in a day. You are not a little red dress...you are the content of your character. You are the ambitions that drive you, the goals that you set. You are beautiful and desirable not for the clique you attend, but for the spark of life within you that compels you to make your life a full and meaningful one. You are beautiful not for the shape of the vessel, but for the volume of the soul it carries."

Age 16

As a child, I was absolutely perfect. Cute, shoulder-length hair and very SKINNY. It happened in about elementary school when I noticed something about this little girl. She wasn't as skinny as everyone else. So to handle my concerns and worries I turned to food. Ice cream, sweets, soda, almost anything that would fill my insecurities. It always seemed to work so the habit persisted and I fostered it ‘til I became a very chubby child.

Fast forward to middle school. Everyone seemed to be all loved up with their boyfriends and girlfriends, but I was alone. Already having a destroyed self esteem from the bullying in elementary school, this only made things worse. And being the very shy and introverted person I am, I didn't tell anyone about my feelings. Instead I ate them away.

Now I'm in high school. A junior and still FAT. My life has been spiraling down ever since elementary. But now it's taken a turn for the absolute worst. I stare in the mirror daily just looking at all the unattractive features I have. Instead of over eating, now I've turned to anorexia. I have a rubber band on my wrist that I snap on my skin after I eat to punish myself. And today I ate a slice of pizza and held back tears of guilt and shame.

I feel like I can't save myself. Anorexia has literally become a person to me. It's no longer just an ED. It's a girl who sits in my mind and thoughts all day just reminding me of how fat I am. Telling me to lose weight so I can finally get the love I want so badly. And even though she hurts me it kills me inside, I want so badly to be her friend. I want her to tell me she's proud of me for skipping meals. I want her praise for exercising for at least an hour and a half every day.

But more than anything I WANT TO BE SKINNY. I crave it like the air I breathe. Yet I don't want this life. I don't want her in my life. So why do I keep doing this to myself? I want to be free, yet I hold on to the chains that surround me.

To This Day

Take a moment to watch this stunning video by Shane Koyczan...and listen. Carefully.

False Advertising

JAM Films produced this documentary, False Advertising, to help women start thinking critically about the media and how they define what is considered "beautiful."

Age 17

Looking at myself everyday getting ready for school in the morning is almost rewarding. I have started to take care of myself, I started CrossFit (so motivational and comforting) and I look at myself and smile.

I look at myself and smile because of the progress and how I've stuck with it. I am currently doing a project for a class on body image in teens. So I googled "body image in teens" and I came across your blog. This is so amazing that you started this - I am so inspired.

Thank you for starting this.

I’m sure it has made so many girls feel confident about themselves and I’m happy you started it.

I am 17 years old, under a lot of stress trying to finish high school and get into college.

I am going to college for personal training and nutrition. I weigh 170 and am so proud of myself.

I have hips, a large butt and a small bust. I love my body and your blog made me realize how important it is.

Thank you and I hope you see this someday and smile.

Meghan Tonjes Response Video

Age 27

"I don't think you understand," I cried to my Mom. "I feel about my skin the way anorexics and bulimics feel about their bodies. Only I kind of envy them because at least they can do something about their weight. There is nothing I can do to make my skin clear up." Later in the conversation, I told her she was a bad mother for not being ashamed to be seen with me in public. Logically, I knew I was talking crazy, but my rational mind obviously was not in charge at the moment. I was throwing a temper tantrum because I wanted my acne to go away, and some achingly young part of me expected that my Mom could fix everything. She was baffled and protested that she thought I was fine, that she had not taught me about makeup and hairstyles because she thought I wasn't interested. I expected her to observe me close enough to know that this apparent disinterest was just clever camouflage. I was pretending I didn't care because it was the only way I could deal with hating my looks so much. Now I know that she was so afraid that insisting I wash my face or wear foundation would give me a complex of some kind that she erred by moving to the opposite extreme, leaving me without any information or support.

People with acne are invisible in our culture in a way that even overweight people are not. Plus size models are now depicted in ads alongside skinny ones, but you won't find any zits in popular culture. I take that back, there are exactly two places acne can be seen on TV: 1) ads for Proactiv, Clearasil and other acne products, and 2) in a comedy when a girl gets one zit the night before the prom and it's a huge tragedy. (Usually, when the camera zooms in on her face, the zit is practically invisible.) In fact, now may be the worst time in history to have bad skin. Because of Photoshop and airbrushing, we’re bombarded with images of perfect skin that is unachievable even for people without persistent breakouts. These Photoshop face fixes look natural and are even harder to spot than the waist-whittling seen so often on magazine covers and in catalogs. Even though our current vogue for thinness feels eternal and ubiquitous, there have been historical periods and cultures that encouraged weight gain and viewed plumpness as a sign of beauty (as well as relative wealth and privilege). On the other hand, clear skin is so central and universal in beauty standards that there is no culture in the world that has ever seen pocked, inflamed skin as attractive. Our reaction to seeing a pimple-covered face is visceral revulsion. This is an ingrained, evolved response that helped our ancestors avoid disease. Nowadays, we automatically think zits make someone look careless, unclean and immature. It's a stereotype without a name or an -ism.

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Age 33

It is a common belief that eating disorders begin in adolescence, and while this is true for most, this was not the case for me. I had made it out of adolescence without an eating disorder, but once the dust settled on my rocky childhood and I was out on my own, I began to process my upbringing. It was then that I began a decade of obsession and dieting, entering into a shameful cycle of quietly binging and compulsively exercising, a cycle that I simply assumed was a by-product of being a young woman.

Only now do I see how the cycle was a product of my past, a latent response to surviving years of abuse and struggle. I could not control my past, and I could not control my future, but by God, I could control the person I would become. And that person would be skinny, as opposed to how chubby I was as a child and teen. If only I could shed the pounds, I could also shed my shameful past and be free to enjoy a healthy future.

So I focused on becoming the person I longed to be – a thinner, more élan version of myself. Each day, my life was gauged by the weight on the scale and the size in my closet. Size 6? I am a champion. Size 8? I have work to do. Size 10? Failure. Utter and complete failure. Upon waking, I did not greet the day with gratitude, rather, I would wake to tally the daily calorie count, my exercise routine for the week, how many calories I had burned the day before, and scheduling in my head when and where I would burn extra calories that day.

In the periphery there was the rest of my life: love, jobs, friendships. Thanks to my focus on food, calories, and exercise, I was a self-contained island in a world of potential hurt. If I avoided connecting too deeply to anything, I could avoid being hurt altogether. I had something else to focus on instead, something that didn’t hurt me, and something that I could control. I had learned early on that everything was impermanent, and that the pain of loss was always just around the corner.

Faced with uncertainty and fear, I focused instead on what I could control, and that was entering in my daily calorie counts into the application on my smart phone. Apple: 60 calories. Toast: 110 calories. String Cheese: 80 calories. Running: 30 minutes, or 300 calories. I was always working towards a weight and size I felt best represented the better part of me, always needing to lose 5 more pounds. If only I can get to a size 4, everyone will see what a strong, beautiful woman I am. Only then would someone see my value. Only then would I find love, and therefore, a purpose. I did not realize at the time that my obsession with food and calories was really my way of maintaining control of my life, and a way to feel a sense of pride in myself that I couldn’t seem to find anywhere else.

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TV Segment Opportunity

TV producer working on an eating disorder program for a major network is looking to help someone who is struggling with anorexia. Accepting all inquiries, but especially seeking women who are mid-age and suffering from an ED for the first time in their lives or have relapsed after years of recovery because of a trigger. Please contact us as soon as possible at tvsegment@gmail.com with a brief introductory paragraph and contact info.

Email: tvsegment@gmail.com

Age 16

At the age of sixteen, you would think that the only thing a girl would have to worry about is school or getting her drivers license. But no, not me. I have to look in the mirror everyday and see an ugly and fat girl staring back. I cry all the time about it. I hate myself. I want to be skinny. Actually, I feel like I have to be skinny. This world we live in isn't fair. It's just so hard trying to workout and diet everyday and then see no results. I'm trapped…I want to get out of this.