Love Yourself

We are constantly told or made notice about our weight.

As children, adults make note of our size. Everything boils down to if you are skinny or if you are the opposite. Fat.

We are compared to one another and made aware of those comparisons by the people we love and by people who don't even know us. Total strangers form first thoughts on us based on our size and shape.

Some say appearance isn't everything, but in this world we live in, that is not what we are teaching our children.

As a child, I was told I was a stick; this skinny little thing. I was compared with one of my cousins and my sister and how they were at my age, only slightly bigger and shorter, but it was enough to make the topic of conversation. I was in sizes smaller than my age bracket and I believed that this is what was good.

So when I grew older and puberty caused me to lose this look of androgyny that I had grown to think was the best way to be, I began to analyse myself in a way I would now call unhealthy. I wasn't the thinnest or the tallest. I wasn't one of those girls with a flat stomach who could pull off a crop top and high waisted jeans at parties like my friends. I wasn't fat, but I wasn't skinny...

A child should not have to think about their weight and how that defines their happiness.

They should not have to worry about their friends all being size six whilst they are an eight, when that size is really no different at all.

That eight becomes a ten whilst they begin to bring size four into English retail, making girls feel bigger than before.

We are conditioned to think these sizes define us.

My cousin began to struggle with her size even though, to the rest of the world, she wasn't "big" at all. You know it's bad when you almost lose someone over what they believe is the perfect weight.

It is estimated that 1.6 million people suffer from eating disorders in the UK. Both boys and girls make themselves ill, cutting themselves to relieve the pain they have built up inside, and it is because we grow up looking in magazines and watching television shows, all of which portray skinny as the norm, and body shame those with even the slightest of fat.

We worry about our bikini bodies or not having a thigh gap or the appearance of a double chin makes us think about starving ourselves to get to the that perfect picture.

It is like the Facebook likes or the Insta Hearts are worth more than just a number on our page. A girl once told me that she deleted any picture that had less than 150 likes. Not because she didn’t like the picture. It wasn't because she thought she didn't look nice in it after most likely the 40th attempt of taking it…it was because less likes meant she was less than perfect.

But do you know what?

You are perfect.

You are the perfect picture.

Your body does not define you. There should be no such thing as a perfect weight or look. If a medical professional has not told you that you need to lose weight, that you are within what is healthy, why the hell change it?

We should be allowed to come in all different shapes and sizes just like we are allowed to breathe the air or walk the earth.

Do not apologise for not being "skinny" enough.

How kind you are and how you treat other people is worth more than your size. Your smile and your spark in life is worth more than a reading on a scale.