The following stories were collected anonymously for the Reflect / Respect project at okaydave.com during 2005.

1.

1.
When John left me for a twenty-year-old
smooth and unlined as new road,
the thing I worried about most
wasn't working at Wal-Mart, or the children
who walked around like three clenched fists,
but my birth-ravaged body, its stretch marks
like tire tracks, the belly split wide
and stitched into a leather purse,
the sad flattened possums of my breasts.
Who'd love me now?

2.
Kathy won't wear anything but overalls
until she drops five more pounds,
is starting to look like a sack of herself.
At the bakery, I'm trying to decide between bagel and scone
as if I were declaring my major. She pinches
the punched dough of her waist, tells me
a bagel counts as three bread exchanges.

3.
In the outdoor amphitheater, music
like privilege, catered picnics on folding tables,
the women look lovely
and thinner in candlelight, at dusk,
holding long elegant crystal stems.
The line for the restroom is endless as discontent,
but there's one empty stall.
Perched above the toilet clogged with vomit,
I see red press-on nails scattered on the floor.
Judging by the contents floating
in the bowl between my knees‹shreds
of romaine, whole croutons, chicken,
and marzipan‹I'd contend
someone first picked off the nails like petals
so she wouldn't tear her throat.

4.
Having learned too early ways the female anatomy
can accommodate a man, I vowed
I'd never grow a woman's body, stalled puberty
with a diet of Cambridge and canned peaches
until I was fifteen, until one night, sitting in front of the t.v.
with a bowl of dill pickle chips and a fork,
I watched "To Kill a Mockingbird."
And as Scout took Boo Radley's hand in hers,
I forgot myself, bled.

5.
Our seventh mile, Kathy and I see the girl again,
maybe nineteen, with an I-mean-business-
in-any-weather expression, her brisk clip
almost a jog. No matter what time of day
we run, she's out, like a defiant tongue,
lapping the neighborhood, and just as soft,
now, as when we first saw her, months ago.
We did the same in college‹
swimming, biking, aerobics and, in-between,
quick batches of Fudge Jumbles, Thin Mints.
We say it together: "Walking herself fat."

6.
My birthday coming up fast,
I walk around crying, have bad dreams:
last night, the conveyor-belt-gone-haywire
Lucy episode, with Kathy as Ethel.
The chocolates had stamped on them
all the years left of our lives, speeding by.
We had to eat them or lose them forever,
and some man out of sight was laughing,
Ricky Ricardo, or maybe John.

7.
Beri phones early, wakes me, and I can't tell
if she's crying or just recovering from a bout
of morning sickness. She asks what exercise
I did when I was pregnant, says her knees
look like bean bags, her husband called her Jethrine.
I remember the names, how my bed grew larger
the longer I was with-child, becoming an ocean
where I floated each night, alone and untouched.
I recommend walking, describe some simple calisthenics,
then hang up quickly, divining only to the walls,
"The man is already shopping."

8.
Greg's "old" college buddies are in town
for the weekend‹Christy and Sara and Todd.
A stream of mail preceded the visit, sexy
post cards addressed to "Love Chunk" and "Sweet Buns"
that ooze at me from his dresser.
They've gone out this evening to "catch up,"
and five years older than he is, I'm trying hard
to be an adult. But I envision Venus and Helen,
only younger. I picture a double date‹
Greg & Christy, Todd & Sara.
Or Greg & Sara. All night alone
I do inventory: four lines under my left eye,
one new dimple on my ass.

9.
When I was nineteen, I lay on the cool familiar
flat of Tom Valley's bed, having nothing more
to offer, and he with nothing else to gain, when he
stated as matter-of-factly as if he'd found a penny,
"You have a beautiful body." Even as I felt
near-perfect for those few unparalleled seconds,
in the next my vision cleared: Liar, Flatterer, Idiot.
My smell filled the room like leftover pizza. Anchovy.

10.
I love to go to the Clermont,
"Atlanta's oldest gentlemen's club,"
Where dancers never die or retire
but simply grow closer to the ground
as they strip on the bar, fondle
the ceiling for balance.
Blondie, star of the show, is fifty-two.
Patina black skin, permed platinum fall
framing the cauldron of her middle,
she's famous for crushing beer cans,
five dollars a turn, between her breasts.
She packs both hands full of slack flesh and nipple
and stretches, pulls them like taffy,
before the wreck and aluminum crunch.

11.
I know Greg loves me:
He takes ballroom dancing, took my kids
to the fair. And I love him in a way
that is healthier, covered by insurance.
but neither he nor my therapist can cure
this need to fill the crisper drawer
with perfect peaches and grapefruits.
Or that other nightmare, where life
is one big orgy and they're about to pick teams.

12.
She has my sister's blond hair and blue eyes,
the same long limbs I always envied.
But the tenacious hand that holds her spoon is mine,
and my square hips keep her planted.
Looking up from the bowl of whipped cream
she calls fruit salad, my daughter asks,
"Will I be pretty as you when I grow up?"
I take a deep breath: strawberries and sugar.
"Baby," I say, "you are going to be magnificent."

2.
My body issues started when I was 14 and was "discovered" and started modeling. At 16 I was told I needed to lose an inch off my thighs....I was 110 lbs and 5'9".

To this day I blame the modeling industry for the struggles I have had with body image. I never starved myself but have always been conscious about what I eat. If I eat a candy bar I can remember it for a week and feel the guilt. Now that I am a bit older I am realizing that I need to enjoy what I have before it is too late. But that is easier said than done.

I like how I look in the morning after not eating for 8 hours. After I eat my body image drops a few points. By evening it is even lower. I get pissed at myself for the constantly degrading myself in front of the mirror. I look at the rear end and think "hmmm...did it look like this a year ago..." Oh my god...what if I have a kid what will it look like then. Would anyone even like me if I butt sagged or my boobs?

I know how ridiculous it all is. But years of practice have gone into thinking this irrationally. I am healthier today than I ever have been...barely drink, loads of water and healthy food and exercise. I really don't think I can do more for my body to look better, so more importantly is that I need to get my head straight and stop hating myself. I have gotten away from modeling and that has helped my tremendously. There is nothing worse than standing in front of five men who look at you like a piece of meat and decide if they want to use you or one of the other 200 girls waiting for their turn to be degraded. I appreciate that time of my life for the good that came out of it, but I wouid never let my daughter do the same as it caused tremendous damage over the years.

3.
Are there any examples or particular incidents in your past where your self-image was at an especially low point? Once when traveling abroad - I was homesick so all I did was eat.

Right after I quit smoking after 15 years, I began to gain weight. Then got married and put on more pounds. It just comes with the territory for many women. I'm trying really hard not to be so judgemental.

How do you feel today about yourself and your body? Great about myself - not so great about my body.

How do you think others perceive you? I guess as OK looking. Not a babe for sure. But not fat. Just with love handles and a tummy. But I don't want the tummy.

How often do you worry about your physical appearance and/or relationships? A LW A Y S

Do you feel a pressure to be married? Yes - the pressurre was applied starting at age 4. But I waited good and long until I met the right guy. It took a while for people to trust my judgement. But in the end it paid off. I wish more women waited longer.

4.
I'm a 25 year old anorexic. They say it's like alocoholism, you never fully recover, you just have good days, and when they pile up you have good weeks, good months, good years. I got my undergrad degree in May 2002, right on time and I wasn't so prepared for the fast loss of identity that was graduation. I come from the great american success story, my dad was raised poor, my sisters and I have been raised wealthy. He pulled himself up by the bootstraps and I felt I would do the same, catapult myself even further into success, international fame, ostentatious wealth, famous hubby, etc. When I graduated and no longer had the student label to explain my unexceptional identity, I paniked. I was not brave enough to risk failure if I did go out on a limb and try to be successful at doing what I loved. Instead I decided to build my identity as a runner, then as a thin girl, then as a super thin girl, then as a sick girl.

That brilliant decision landed me in a mental hospital in September 2002. The bottom had come and I was 30 lbs underweight, forcibly removed from my adult life and living at home with my parents, bedridden due to high risk of heart failure, and still thinking I was surperior, strong, and in control. A long two years later I know I was weak, totally lost and out of control. I was looking for some standard to be judged against, and it brought me to war against my body. popular imagery in the media impresses on women an inaccurate idea of beauty, and society, at least that in which I was raised, pressures all of us to have an identity that is built on a comparison with the accepted notions of beauty, intellegence, wealth, etc. I'm in recovery now because I have met women who are strong, noble, beautifully exceptional and now i know what that looks like. Generally, it doesn't look too thin.

5.
I don't think I can ever remember a time when I did not worry about my weight, how I looked, and how others perceived how I looked. For me I believe it started when I hit puberty. Any self-consciousness about my self-image began in large part due to my early development. Hitting puberty before anyone else my age was probably one of the most mortifying experiences of my life. All of a sudden in elementary school there I was, I had a chest, I had hips, and I was the tallest girl in my grade. Sticking out like a sore thumb was the last thing that I wanted to do. All these changes were made more obvious by my older sister who clearly was not as developed as I was. All this attention to this body that I had developed overnight made me incredibly uncomfortable. People were constantly pointing out to me my height, my chest, my curves--and I was receiving this attention from strangers as well as my family. The story may have been different if people had been giving me more positive responses about the changes that were going on with my body. Most of the responses I received were pointing out to me how glaringly different I was from everyone else my age. Not to mentoin the norm on television and in magazines is to not be curvy and well developed. It was because of this experience when I was ten or eleven that I developed a negative reaction to the way I looked because of the pairing of my body becoming more womanly with the unwanted reaction by everyone. I never had the chance to grow into this womanly body, and any reactions i had receieved were so embarrassing and unwanted that for a lot of years i continued to try and hide any sign of "womanlyness" I had. I wasn't comfortable with the way that guys received me for many years because I myself wasn't comfortable with my body because I had spent so many years denying what I had become. I didnt have any relationships with guys until my senior year of high school due in large part because of my insecurities I had developed. Even though i was finally receiving positive, respectiful responses from others about my image, in my mind I had already decided for myself that the comments I had received at age 10 were the ones that were more true. Eventually, after many years of wishing so hard to be something I am not -- a skinny, rail thin, tall, long-haired beanpole like the women that are in magazines and on tv--I am just beginning to appreciate the body that I do have, and am trying to not rely on other's perceptions of what my image is. A large part of why this has occurred for me was the development of other aspects of myself. The past two years I took a step back from a superficial reality that I was living in in college and stepped into a reality where those values were not acknowledged and other values were of the utmost important, such as helping others. Through helping others, and in turn developing skills and competencies that made me feel confident about my other abilities, I was able to confront the issues I have with my self-image. Though I am sure this is something I will struggle with as I think all women do, I feel that as I get older I am becoming more and more comfortable in my own skin.

6.
I think the main pressure in society is to be thin. I feel this is the biggest problem because being thin is something every girl feels like she can control. Not everyone can get a face lift or boob job, but stop eating meals and you will automatically be viewed as pretty and accepted in society. Thinness has been confused with being healthy. I also feel this pressure. Mainly becuase I want clothes to fit me right and be able to not worry about my falling out of my bathing suit at the beach or pool.

But more than being thin, I want to be healthy. I think that comes along with it. In order to be my normal body size, I would be thin. I don't feel good when I am overweight or eat too much of things that aren't healthy for me. I think if people would realize that exercising and eating right and drinking water will make you feel better on the inside, they would see themselves as much more beautiful that they normally do.

Beauty, for myself, stems from confidence. When I feel good about myself and the way I look and feel, people can see that and I think it makes you more attractive. I tend to like natural beauty more than someone wearing a string bikini or five pounds of makeup. If you can be satisfied and love yourself for what you have been given, it shows and you don't need all of that extra stuff to make yourself something you're not.

I think there is a definite pressure to get married. I think for a lot of girls, being married is a validation that someone will love you forever and has accepted you. As we can see in today's world forever is not always the case, but for girls our age I think that's the main reason. A sense of stability in a crazy life. Someone to love them, to go through life and experience things with.

Today I feel pretty good about my body. The winter is always a seasonal depression time, I tend to eat more and there's not as much urge to do physical activity. But, I try to drink a lot of water for my skin, eat the right foods to give me energy and exercise to relieve stress. Every girl likes to get dressed up, but I think I am just as attractive in pajamas. I would hope that people would see me as beautiful for the person I am more than my physical attributes.

7.
As a child, i was always below the growth curve, and it sort of stayed that way. Everyone knew I'd be petite, it runs in my family, but I wanted to be 5'10 like Cindy Crawford (a favorite quote from Clueless). I studied Vogue, W and other fashion magazines, dreaming of wearing those clothes, having that hair, long legs and beautiful face. On the cusp of puberty, I was right where i needed to be, skinny, same as my friends, able to wear cute clothes. But as my friends grew into size 2, 4, and 6's, I remained the same. At 24, I'm barely a size 0 and while everyone thinks its a blessing, it's not. No matter what I wear, it's still a challenge NOT to look like a prepubescent 13-year-old whose hips rarely fill a pair of pants and who swims in most skirts.

Some days I'm grateful for my size B cup, but mostly, I wonder why i can't gain weight even when I try. My friends call me miniature and my dad tries to make me choke down protein drinks.

And then there's the side mirror. When i look at my profile, I lose sleep wondering why my nose is longer than everyone elses, and if surgically changing your physical appearance (which is part of you, your heritage, your family) to look more like everyone else, is really worth it. My nose is my grandmother's. My Eastern European ancestry. Part of my culture. But everyday I wonder if changing it will make me more confident and maybe beautiful.

But then sometimes, there'll be a night when my freshly washed jeans fit perfectly, the cold weather calms my wavy hair, makeup lessens the severity of my big nose, and for those few hours...it all sort of works.

8.
when i was in 5th grade, my friend megan started saying she was fat. she wasn't fat at all, it was just that she was the first one to, oh i have to use that beverly cleary word here - develop. since she was the first one to get a chest, she was of course the most popular with the boys. i thought, if megan says she's fat and is so popular and cool, i wonder if i should start saying that i'm fat so i'll be cool too. after you tell yourself something so many times, you start believing it. i thought i was huge by the time i was in 7th grade. i was so small. in 10th grade i actually did gain about 10 pounds because i didn't do a sport one winter. that terrified me, and by 12th grade i was running 4 miles a day, drinking so much water i'm surprised i didn't drown, eating nothing, and making myself throw up if i ever ate any chocolate or sweets. oh and i took laxatives every night (carly, a thin girl in my class, told me that if you take 2 fibercons before going to bed, you could lose weight and not suffer from diarrhea). my boyfriend found out about that i was doing and got so mad. he told me that i was being so stupid. it sounds harsh when i write it, but it wasn't. it was exactly what i needed to hear. he wasn't saying it to be mean, but rather to say that i was harming myself when there really wasn't any need to. since that moment (we were walking on a road at school near the music house) i haven't made myself throw up or swallowed anymore laxatives for weightloss. at that moment i weighed exactly 23 pounds less than i do now. for a person as short as i am, that's a lot. i have to admit, however, that i loved how i looked. i look at pictures and my face looks great and my arms look good and my waist! and you could see hipobones through one of my prom dresses. can you imagine? our culture and my brain has told me for so long that you're not beautiful unless you can see your hipbones! that's a sign of disease and hunger, not beauty. but still to this day, i have huge issues. right now, as i sit here, i'm thinking, shit, i'm glad i ran today because i'm becoming so fucking fat. my stomach is kind of hanging over my jeans right now. disgusting. my ass is the size of north dakota and if i had the money, i would definitely get liposuction. in fact, once i do have money (but will i ever?), i am certainly getting it done if i still want to. right now, i dream about getting it every single day. i'm not kidding - every single day. no matter how much i exercise, i still have an enormous ass. even when i was itty bitty in high school, baby had back. according to websites i'm a perfect person for liposuction because i'm healthy and not overweight, i just have 'problem areas.' it's a 'problem,' you see, and i got to tell you, i've bought into that idea. oh another thing, i've gained a few pounds over the fall & winter. i love swimming pools. i love them so much. but i will not go to the pool with this body. no way. i'm disgusting. i still go to the y and swim, but the only people that see me there are 11 year olds and 70 year old women. when i see myself in the reflection at the y it almost brings me to tears every time. cellulite, bulges, pale, gross. if i'm going to gain weight, could i at least get soft? why do i just get lumpy and segmented and absolutely ugly? my face looks ugly too. my face is so much bigger than it was when i was thin. i've got a mammoth face. fatface. i don't wear shorts. ever. seriously. except to exercise. my legs are horrid. and my thighs are so fat that the shorts hike up to my ass and just look ridiculous. i want to be tight, tan, toned. and i'm not. the only way to get there is to not eat much and exercise a ton. i like wine, i like cheese, i like food. when i just typed out that sentence i felt so gross. when i saw 'i like food' it looks so disgusting and i feel like a pig. food. gross. see, i've still got a lot of it. a lot of those bad thoughts. self-hate, never accepting myself. sometimes i'm ok and i feel great. sometimes i don't want to leave the house because i think i look so bad and none of my clothes fit me right. oh and men. no one will ever like me because of my body. i have been single for a really long time now (coming up on 2 years), and i cannot, simply cannot, fathom being naked with someone. nope. no way. i would feel revolting. i would make the guy very unlucky to be in bed with a floppy segmented fatso.

9.
I always had an athletic body from playing sports since I was really young. In high school and even into college that definitely affected my self-image and made me think that I was overweight. I wore ill-fitting, baggy clothes so that no one would be able to see what I really looked like underneath. I had absolutely no confidence in myself. I focused on everything other than my appearance because I felt like I would never be skinny and pretty.

It wasn't until I was well into college that I realized and accepted that I was not "fat", but instead an extremely curvy girl. I mean, I'm a size 8 with 36D boobs -- sort of a natural version of Pamela Andersen if you will. Once I just accepted this fact I was able to buy clothes that emphasized my positive attributes and masked the negatives. The clothes were definitely tighter, although not necessarily what I would describe as revealing. They certainly showed a lot more of my figure than I would've ever felt comfortable showing in high school.

The payoff was tremendous; I've got to say. Guys never used to notice me. Guys notice me everyday now. Some guys don't even call me by name. When they see me they just say "Hello, Gorgeous." Men follow me in their cars down the freeway grinning eerily at me. They shout at me from across parking lots. They offer me free food in restaurants. I once had 2 guys ask me out within 30 seconds -- they were standing in line one after the other as I was getting in my car after lunch.

It might seem shallow to like having guys tell me that I look good, but it gave me a confidence that I never knew before. Even other people besides men -- women, older married couples, clients, coworkers -- tell me I look great every single day. My looking good is a reason for people ¥ strangers ¥ to talk to me.

For me, dressing nicely, wearing form-fitting clothing and makeup ¥ it's not really about the attention that I get from guys anymore but more about how I want people to perceive me. The image I'm trying to project is that I'm organized, thoughtful, intelligent, professional, fashionable, etc. It's a psychological fact that society considers beautiful people more trust worthy than unattractive people. Why do you think the advertising Pepsi did with Britney Spears was the most effective in the company's history? It's certainly not because she's some sort of soda connoisseur. I myself work in sales; looking good is just a small part of my job. Think about it -- how many successful overweight salespeople do you know?

Working at looking great hasn't changed who I am, but I do believe it has made me a better person in the eyes of society. I am certainly a much happier person now than I ever was before. I won't lie -- I still dream of being a size 4. I would love to lose 30 pounds. But I'm happy enough with the way I look that it doesn't bother me every second of every day. I like what I see when I look in the mirror. I can wear a bikini with total confidence. When I leave my house every day I feel pretty even though no one told me so.

Certainly part of my self-image problems stemmed from airbrushed models and underfed celebrities on magazine covers and in movies. Even more of it came from comparing myself to my peers. But the majority of my self-image problems came from my family. My mother buys everything 2 sizes too large. She steers clear of all v-neck shirts and opts mostly for turtlenecks and over-sized t-shirts. Her pants all have elastic waistbands. I remember going on a vacation to Cancun, Mexico with my mother after my first year of college and she asked me to please not wear a bikini because she wasn't sure she could handle it. To this day my mom still considers me overweight and makes this point obvious to me whenever the opportunity presents itself. And it's not like my mom is some sort of beauty queen. She herself has always been overweight and struggled to lose weight for the last 20 years, finally whittling herself down to a size 10 for the first time in her life just within the last year.

I don't think there is any kind of preventative measure that can be taken to avoid facing the body image issues that women experience today. As long as guys continue to desire and react to women in the way that they do and as long as some women are born with naturally high metabolisms, women will always work to be as skinny as possible.

Working through self-image issues is a normal part of growing up. I believe that working through my body image problems has made me a stronger, more confident person today. Falling in love and being with the same person for the last five and a half years has also helped me feel more comfortable in my own skin. I imagine that if I were single I would devote more time to my appearance since attracting guys would be a significant focus in my life.

10.
Today,I feel healthy, beautiful, and have the life I want. There are alot of reasons why I feel this way, not the least of which are having a strong spiritual belief and practice. I did want to share an ironic turning point in my self-image, however, regarding my body and sexuality.

I've always worked in a mostly male, technical industry. I get alot of attention from men I work with, because I'm still young and I'm one of the few females in the workplace, but I never wanted to be reconized for how I look or act socially. I have always stressed accomplishment and hard work, which has paid off for me. I have the respect of my male peers, and they treat me as a colleague and friend, not a sex object, or 'other'.

When my self image, in terms of my body and desirabillity were at an all time low and I was still recovering from an abusive relationship, I was invited by an aquaintance to join a band as a backup singer. One of the requirements, since it was a sixites pop-style performance band, was that I'd have to wear alot of makeup, big hair, mini skirts etc.

For a long time it was hard for me to admit how much I valued the experience of being on stage as a purely visual, sexual expression of myself as a woman. My whole life I really downplayed and suprressed any natrual beauty in an attempt to be taken seriously. But I was also ignoring a great gift that I'd been given, and that I've found is healthy to enjoy and express. I'm not really obsessed with my weight or how I look, but I care about it, and I enjoy looking beautful, and being appreciated for it. It took a long time for me to be comfortable with those issues, and it's made me a happier, more serene person.

11.
I'm getting uglier and uglier the older I get. Sometimes I think it's the price I pay for being so vain when I was a teenager and in my early 20s.

My skin is the problem. In my late 20s I started breaking out like crazy and now am all red and pock marked. I never look at myself in the mirror because I can't stand the way I look.

Sometimes I'm embarrassed for my boyfriend when he introduces me to his friends or family. I'm sure they wonder what he's doing with such an ugly woman. I prefer to go out at night when my skin problem isn't so obvious.

I am also kind of flabby but I can take care of that with excercise. My skin I can't do anything about.

At least I have a sense of humor and I'm kind.

12.
I have a difficult relationship with my thighs. I have been perhaps 20 lbs overweight at the most, and am usually well within the healthy range for my height and build...but my thighs always have saddlebags, cellulite and stretch marks.

My worst self-image moments typically occur while trying on jeans. Most jeans seem to be made for women with different proportions from me, so if the waist fits, I may not even be able to get my (suddenly immense) thighs into them, and if the thighs fit, the waist is way too big. I have become so frustrated with my thighs in the course of trying on jeans that I've pounded my thighs, left bruises. I don't do that anymore, but I remember the feeling of frustration, anger, and betrayal by my body very well.

I also worry, now that I'm 35, as my body changes. As someone who was never the physical ideal (at least in my own eyes), it is scary to be more or less competing with much younger women to be found attractive by the men I find attractive. As I get older, men seem to date 10-15 years younger than their own age more and more. I no longer feel "ripe", although a part of me is aware that my body is more lush and womanly now than it ever has been before - all without gaining weight, it's just redistributing itself.

I have always had a voice in my head that says "your thighs are fat and ugly" and "your clothes are frumpy." It's partners with the voice that tells me "you're a terrible person" and "that was really stupid."

I think men perceive me as a little heavier than ideal. I don't worry about it constantly, but I worry about romantic relationships a lot (I'm single), and my looks are part of that. I don't really feel pressure to be married, but I'd like to have a successful romantic relationship.

13.
I woke up in the middle of the night to a loud thud on the ground. When I got up I saw that my sister fell out of her bed and was having a sesiure. My parents took her to the hospital where they discovered she hadn't eaten in 4 days. This was in 6th grade.

I haven't lived at home for 17 years and am just starting to recognize the social pressures my parents put on us to be thin and "beautiful". In my house the main goal for a woman was to try to attain beauty and beauty = thin. At the time it was great. Even today if I ask how my siblings are doing the response will be "Carol has lost some weight and looks great". Does that really answer the question of HOW someone is doing?

Unfortunately old habits die hard. The logical part of me says to ignore social pressures and to be proud even if I am 15 lbs "overweight". The other part of my brain tells me that I am worthless and disgusting because I have a little extra giggle. I'm not sure how to conquer these social ideas instilled in me especially when the rest of the world buys into them. The world is kinder to the beautiful. Those less than beautiful need to work a little harder to attain the same goals. At least that's how it seems. Until that changes it will be an uphill battle to change women's views of themselves.

14.
I am single & in my 40's. A funny thing happened to me once I turned 40....I didn't care as much about the superficial stuff like how much I weigh or what others think of me. I'll admit it's been a slow journey to this realization. But it is so liberating. This is not to say I've let myself go or become unbearable to be around. It's simply that I've learned to really, truly like myself! I think that is the main key to all young womens' insecurities.

I think I always had a fairly good sense of self esteem but like most teens and girls in their 20's, I had doubtful times. In my early 30's, my weight rocketed to an all-time high. My health was poor. I was depressed. That was my lowest point, mentally and physically about how I felt about myself.

I finally took control and joined a weight loss group and the local YMCA. After 8 months I had lost 50lbs! And was feeling fantastic. Next I faced my health fears. I was scared, but I went through the surgery that was necessary to improve my health problem. Everything turned out fine. My outlook was beginning to improve.

I began to go to a psychotherapist to put my life and thoughts into perspective. (I believe this is one of the best investments one can make in one's self). Sometimes a third, unbiased party can help you figure out what you can't by yourself. Eventually, my depression lightened. I even was able to accomplish things in my life I'd been wanting to do for a long time and had been putting off. This gave me a real sense of empowerment and tremendous self esteem.

Because of the cummulative effect of years of all these strategies, I was able to come to the person I am today: a very happy, self-actualized, humorous, fun-loving, loyal, accepting, trustworthy, take-no-sh_t-off-nobody kinda gal!!! Who really likes being me! If I lose a few pounds, that would be ok but I'm not stressing over it. If I end up getting married or not, that's ok, too. I have a lot of friends; I keep busy; I pamper myself; I'm not childless as there are many ways to have a "family"; and I have accepted my body...especially now that I know a great plastic surgeon!!!!!

15.
I used to hate the color pink.

I'm not sure where the prejudice stemmed from, but when I was growing up, pink was synonymous with all things girly and prissy and pretty (not in the nice way, but in that "I'm-an-overindulged-little-girl-and-perfectly-groomed-and-wouldn't-dare-get-my-sweet-little-hands-dirty-in-any-way" way). Like little Ashlee O'Connor with her perky little blonde curls and her perfect little hairbows and neat little socks and shoes. I just wanted to spit on pink. To me, it was a sign of being feminine, which as a child and adolescent, was something I never considered myself and never really aspired to be because I thought to be feminine was to be powerless and weak and unable to accomplish anything based on one's own merits and intellect. It meant being high-maintenance and being overly concerned with appearances and physical beauty, which I thought was vain and misplaced and disingenuous. Pink was always preening and pastel and seemed to say, please don't take me seriously, I'm pink. I was my own person, I insisted, and pink to me was the color of a person that was not her own (think: mincing mistresses in marabou mules). Pink was air-headed and insubstantial and wholly unappealing. It was the color of poodle skirts and Barbie, Cinderella and Coco Chanel, Strawberry Shortcake and something something, and I wanted none of it.

Something peculiar happened when I went away to school though (as these things usually do): I rediscovered pink and found that it had the wardrobe of a swinging seventies man. It must've been when I was a junior or senior in college. I was out with some friends one day, sifting through the recycled goods at the local thrift store when I happened upon a pair of pink polyester trousers while flipping through the endless racks of men's pants. I'm not always the most imaginative when it comes to thrift-store shopping‹I'm usually looking for something I'd typically buy and wear but at a bargain bargain price (this usually never works out for me)‹but this was a Find, for someone other than me at least. Actually, I had pulled them off the rack thinking they would be of definite interest to my other friends present that day but no one wanted them. Someone finally suggested I purchase them since I was so clearly and oddly drawn to them (I wouldn't put them down) and since I did find them so absolutely ridiculous (I could just imagine an old man wearing them on the golf course with black gartered socks), I took them home with me that day for the grand price of $1.30. And felt quite subversive for it, if not a little sheepish.

These were quite a pair of pants. Not only were they synthetic and pink and reminiscent of a more groovy era, these were a pair of sansabelt slacks, with a wide band of elastic encircling the waistband, ostensibly meant to keep them up without the help of an external belt. They were interesting. But mostly they were pink. Not the pastel baby pink of my myopic memory, they were more a shade of bubblegum, much more animated and playful than I ever imagined pink could be. The first time I wore them was probably to a costume dinner at my eating club so it was all in fun and jest. I could wear pink then because I knew I was being ironic and all my friends knew it too (I wasn't the pink sort of girl, you know, with all of its negative and derogatory connotations of being a princess et cetera). It took me a while to come to the conclusion and admit that pink actually fit me just fine. I used to wear those pants whenever I was feeling bold and out there and wanting to make a statement, or when I needed to inject some excitement or zest into my day or week. It was like a dare‹who had the balls to walk around with that much color on‹and since I am shameless sometimes when it comes to appearances, I thought to myself, I can do this, I can wear lots of pink and love it and have no one question my character. It became my badge, especially when someone remarked one day that in fact I really did look good in pink. And then came the pink tee-shirts and pink skirts and pink sweaters and more pink pants and pink underwear and pink socks and eventually, a pink coat.

And then I started to think about it deeper, not so much about what it meant that I, a bright strong individual, was sporting something that seemed so contrary to my personality, but I started chipping away at those old prejudices about other people and about myself. Pink transformed me. I learned to appreciate my femininity rather than shy away from it out of fear of what it represented (a loss of control perhaps? or just plain oblivion as how to operate socially as a female?) Wearing pink allowed me to acknowledge that other aspect of my being and to reclaim it, and through it I learned to love my inner princess and set her free. I was so intent on looking the other way for my own voice and independence that I forgot to simply look within. Pink was empowering and reaffirmed me as an individual, daring and unique, because I was finally doing something different‹on the inside. It was like having my own little secret and it became my signature. Unfortunately nowadays everywhere you look, pink is in, in every possible permutation (I prefer the vibrant pinks, more orange-red than blue, but pastels are all right too sometimes), as it has been for the last few seasons, which sort of defeats my whole claim on individuality. But I know that long after the fashion passes, I'll still be pretty in pink and proud of it.

16.
I am 35 years old, 5'9" tall, and weigh about 145. My entire childhood I was overweight, even though I was tall in relation to others my age. I was chubby, never obese, or what I look back on now as really even being "fat," but that is what I considered myself to be, probably because that is what others considered me to be. I played sports, was a tomboy, but I never lost the weight even during sports seasons to even think of myself as thinning out. When I was a Junior and Senior in high school, I lost weight, and when I look back at pictures, I was pretty tall and thin-looking, but I never at the time considered myself thin, and neither did anyone else. I had the picture in my head of what I was, which was what Id looked like and felt about myself my whole life, and that's what prevailed. In college I went up and down in weight, ending up by graduation at probably my heaviest ever. The same continued after college, a year a little lighter, then a year heavier, I never stuck with any exercise plans or eating habits. It didn't help the situation that I moved around the country, from seasonal job to seasonal job (ski resort type places to beach resort type places), while I tried to figure out what in the world I thought I could do with my life. I believe --now-- that the fact that I felt I had no where to fit in contributed nearly 100% to my horrible sense of self-esteem. I didn't think I was really worth anything, so, in my mind, why would anyone else. Relationships were always weak, family and dating, I was angry at everyone else because I didn't like myself. There were some really tough years I went through, and I'd never want to go back to feeling the way I did, but I'm not sure if I should want to trade them, either. I feel I am lucky, very lucky, to have figured out where I fit in, and to be actually be doing for a job what I love to do. It's not much money, but the satisfaction is immense. I chose a career in acting and comedy--a choice NOT for the thin-skinned or thin-bodied. Weight-problems are more easily accepted in the comedy field, but the acting industry is still so superficial. Once I realized it was "ok" for me to say I want to be an actor and comedienne, I felt such peace.

The weight-issue I still have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I still feel it shouldn't matter, and I despise the thought of a nation full of people who are exactly the same. On the other hand, once I started losing weight (which, honestly, started because I had 2 jobs going and didn't have time to sit around and eat like I used to; the initial weight loss inspired me to start jogging, and quick results spurred me to keep at it) people reacted differently towards me, and in turn, my self-confidence increased. VERY SLOWLY. And then I question whether I could really call it "self-confidence" if it was spurred by how others were reacting towards me. But, hey, I took what I could get and was happy to be feeling happy. Doors started opening, things started happening for me. I like to think that it wasn't merely because of the weight loss, but because the weight loss and the new vision of how my life could be gave me self-confidence and the realization that I really had talent that I should pursue. I still am, to this day, in farely good shape, I honestly just FEEL BETTER the weight I am now, I still exercise which helps tremendously with one's mental outlook, I'm also a vegetarian, but I still have the self-deprecating side to me, and I think I'm very humble, and do not expect to be given things, especially merely because of appearance--and I don't care for people who use that as their strong suit. I like to think growing up without that sense of "I am beautiful and thin and people should want to like me right away because of that" has made me a much BETTER person, a hard-working adult woman, who sees the character and talent and intellect and goodness in myself and others before ever considering the outer person.

17.
When I was a teenager, my father suggested I get a padded bra, "So your clothes will look better."

18.
It's funny because just the other day, I was told by a random man that I was "fat, but not too fat." I'm 21 now, and thought that my depressing body image days were over in terms of being confronted with it by outsiders. Apparently not. I was very upset by that comment as I started to cry in the middle of the store I was in. I had such an anxiety attack, I had to get a cab ride home.

When I was 17, I had made it obvious to my friends and family that I had an eating disorder. It actually started when I was 15-16 years old when I was indulging in bulimic behavior. As time went on, I went through a lot of train wrecks, so to speak, and became anorexic because at the time, it was my only way to cope. My parents were separated because my dad had cheated on my mom, and my ex-boyfriend whom I thought I was in love, with had cheated on me as well. Since I had always relied on my eating disorder to help me feel a little bit better about myself, I dove into it even more during these times.

Eventually, my mom forced me into an in-patient therapy institution for only 2 weeks. They discharged me b/c I went through everthing perfectly. However, I knew that the worst wasn't over. I had gained a little weight, but not to the point where it bothered me. As soon as I got home, I relapsed and fell right back into the drama of it all. In hopes to lose more weight, the opposite happened. I began gaining more and more weight by the day. I found myself back in my old shoes again--overweight and unhappy. In reality, I wasn't overweight at all. I was normal, but that just wasn't good enough. As time went on, I learned a lot about myself and what I wanted to do w/ my life as college was approaching. I forced myself to think healthy and try to help others with my situation that were in need. Unfortunately, nothing is as easy as it sounds. I had major difficulty dealing w/ my weight and body image. I continuously felt threatened by my best friend and roommates size 2-4, and my other exercising fiend friends. I started comparing myself to my boyfriend's ex-girlfriend until it was ridiculous, and woke up every morning with the intent to starve. At the time, I was in South Carolina, and felt a strong urge to get out. I made plans to do the exchange program to New York so I could go on my own path.

In New York, I felt that things were getting better. I officially majored in Psychology but realized I needed to really help myseld before I could help others with body image problems. I invested my time in good things such as volunteering and just exploring the city. I did feel threatened by the fashion and the many modelesque figures in NYC, but then again, because of New York's over-populated island, I only felt as if I were a speck in the crowd. I found that nobody really invested too much energy on a girl's weight. Yet again, nothing's ever that easy. I began to get entrapped in the idea of the New York woman--having it all. I just could never get a grip on myself eating and excersicing-wise.

Currently, I feel like I've matured quite a bit in a matter of a few years. High school is where my body image problems all began, and unfortunately it has taken a dramatic spin on my life and what my life will be. I'm enthralled in the idea of helping others cope with their body image problems, but like I said before, I have to genuinely recover before I ever can offer the best help. I still feel as if I need to lose a hefty amount of weight to be attractive and to feel better about msyelf. In terms of others and their beauty, I can easily say that everyone entails something beautiful--everyone is worth it and should feel beautiful. Sadly, I cannot take that advice for msyelf. I wish I could because my life has been severely affected by this problem.

19.
Most of my life I viewed my self as fat and ugly. How could I have had any other vision-I grew up with a brother who called me Blimpo or tub-a-lard and my parents never thought to intervene. When I looked in the mirror I saw someone who was fat and ugly. In my early 20's I started seeing a therapist. She sent me home to come up with a list of 10 things that I liked about myself. Two weeks later I returned to her office with a short list that had been agonizing to compose. There was only 1 item on it. "I like my feet". I half expected her to laugh but she looked at it for awhile and then looked up at me and said "I can see we have some work to do." It took years for me to see that I was a few pounds overweight and actually quite beautiful; inside and out. It took several more years for me to get up the courage to strike out in the world, hold my head high and fight for what I wanted in life. Someone who could see who I was and support me in my life. Now nearly 15 years after that first appointment I have my own psychotherapy practice and I assign that same homework to many a patient who comes in to see me. It is such a valuable tool to be able to accurately assess our own beauty. My history of being abused by my brother definately shaped who I became. I sought to provide others relief from pain. While many who are abused become abusers-I took the other road and sought to heal. I became a nurse and attempted to give my heart and soul to my patients. I quickly burned out and became resentlful. My years in therapy helped me to establish a balance in my work and private life. It also helped me to find a wonderful partner in whose eyes I see a reflection of myself. He frequently tells me I am beautiful even at times when I don't feel this way at all.

I think that beauty does start from within for even if given a physically beautiful body-if you do not believe in yourself-no one else will. I have definately felt myself grow into who I am as I have gotten older. I am 42 now and have just had my second child. I see my beauty reflected in these children many times a day. They laugh and smile and seem to love life-This is beautiful.

A solution? Love, love and more love. I hope to love my children with all my heart and soul. I hope to never criticize them in hurtful ways and hope that I can let them bloom into beautiful people.

20.
I am 55 and at this age you think about how changes are going in regards to how you look. I am an active,outgoing person. I exercise regularly and eat right. I have been married for 31 years to a great guy.....and he still finds me attractive. But it is how I see myself....and it isnt really as a pretty or attractive person. I find myself not wanting to go certain places because of this aging process. I feel I just look so different than I did when I was 35...it is does bother me. I have to be perfectly put together when I do go out and I have issues with the way my hair looks. I want to feel that freedom of when I could just jump up and go for a whole day without really thinking of how I looked.

I try not to say these things to anyone else because they dont really see what I see. It seems so shallow to focus on my looks when there is so many other phases to my life. I am at a good place in my life and I am a happy, satisfied person.....except when I look in the mirror.

21.
I am a 38 y/o surgical nurse. The defining point for me and my self image was when i was 15 years old. I was tanning on a blanket next to the house when my brother and his best friend drove up. I had a major crush on my brother's best friend. As my brother got out of the car and walked into the house with his friend, he made the comment that I looked like a "Beached Whale". I was 5'3", a size 5/7, and weighed probably 115lb. I was mortified, and still hear that negative comment ringing in my ears years later. I mentioned it to my brother a few years ago. He doesn't remember it and says that I wasn't fat back then.

I worked at a brand new facility where I was the largest nurse in the OR at a size 18/20. Our patient population tends to be on the larger side due to the type of procedures we did. We would call them "fluffy". I have been self-conscious of my weight for years. Sometimes when a particularly "fluffy" patient would come to our OR, comments would be made by the staff. This was after the patient was asleep and exposed. Comments such as "how can she let herself get that bad", "Does she ever look in the mirror?". I would feel myself start to flush. I used to comment that maybe she was overwhelmed at the amount of weight needing to be lost, and just didn't know where to start. I always wondered why they would make such comments in front of me when I was so fat. Then it occured to me that while I'm not petite, maybe I wasn't as big as I perceived myself to be...

22.
Well I started to say I didn't think my occupation had ever affected my body image and then had to reconsider. In my single days I worked in an Emergency Room where the common attire was scrubs. We looked like we were wearing PJs all day...and one would have to admit the younger, skinnier gals would definitly have looked better. I was one of those and pretty foot loose and fancy free back then. I think my self-image in those days was at its highest level I was in my mid 20's to late 20's and as a women was coming into my own.

I married a lovely guy when I was 30, who works out daily and trys to maintain his shape and does a good job, during those same years I started to lose mine which affected my self image considerably. I had a son and while never "fat" I certainly wieghted more than I thought I ever would at 5 foot 3 and 148lbs. I had the "pooch" in the tummy and felt like the Pinguin Man in some outfits.

I feel my self image strongest when I am traveling...maybe I am in my element... We traveled to Ukraine in December to adopt two children and I was 7 months pregnant-I just felt so confident in that trip, my self-image was strong. Was it the choices, the travels the idea of our future family??? I am not certain I just felt like "me" in those weeks. I was so postive. Since then I have had a baby and without doing anything but cutting back on sodas I have lost 20lbs from before I conceived her. So my self image is better than it had been after giving birth to my son 2 1/2 years ago.

I think beauty is first noticed on the outside of course...but I think a bad attitude etc... quickly deminishes any beauty that one could have.

I think my self-image has a massive affect on my daily life and how I handle myself among others...

23.
I have rarely felt beautiful. Sure, I have had a few moments in life when I thought I looked good, but the majority of the time, I feel ugly. My mom did nothing to help this. She often commented on things that were "wrong" with me. For example, she often commented that my pear shape came from my father's side, NOT her side. And, she often comments that she thinks I look SO much better with bangs. (Not a nice thing to say since I haven't had bangs in years!)

I was born and raised in Texas- land of the ultra-tan, ultra-made up. In fact, every Texas girl's dream is to be a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader. Not a good dream for someone who burns if she thinks about going outside and has never been tan a day in her life! I always felt very self-conscious about being pale-skinned. Didn't help that so many people commented on my skin color, like it was something I could change! I remember being told, "You need to get a tan" and "Why don't you lay out" and "Why are you so white?"

I have also dealt with some physical problems that have affected my appearance. I lost most of my eyelashes for a time due to eyelid inflammation. I felt so very hideous and still struggle with not having thick lashes. Doesn't help that mascara commercials are on every day and in all the magazines!

I am surprised that I haven't dealt with an eating disorder. I obsess about my weight and wish I was model skinny. But, I like to eat and hate throwing up, so an eating disorder has never been my problem!

I am now at a point in life when I care far less about the way I look. I am a mother and my husband and daughter think I am beautiful!

What is my definition of beauty? When I see a woman with no makeup and a kind smile, I think she is beautiful. When I see an elderly woman with years of wrinkles and twinkly eyes, I think she is beautiful. When someone is kind, loving, unselfish, generous, etc, that person is truly beautiful. Beauty from the inside is so much more important than beauty on the outside. I believe all that I have just typed, but I still struggle with self-esteem issues due to my own physical appearance.

24.
I am a 26-year-old graduate student, European-American, born and raised in the Northeast. (I now live in New England.) I have had trouble with low self (body) image and anorexic thinking since high school. Although it is a lot better now I still struggle, especially at times when I am feeling stressed out or upset. It took a long time for me to realize and acknowledge that when I am worried about something - such as being lonely in a new city, seeing my ex-boyfriend, or being frustrated at work - I re-focus my thinking onto how I am too fat, disgusting, a failure. (I am 5'4" and weigh between 188-124 lbs, so obviously I am really neither over nor underweight.) I would like to be more toned and a bit thinner - when I was in the habit of working out and eating carefully I felt great about my body, but then I get in a rut of less healthy eating and exercising and it seems harder and harder to get out of, especially if I am having problems at work.

I feel ugly when I look at pictures of myself taken recently - I get very squeamish, and think, "That's not how I imagine myself!" I think I am much better looking in person than in photos, which I guess is better than the other way around. I also feel ugly when I am nervous and when I read too many fashion magazines. Then my face feels greasy and my clothes feel ill-fitting. I think my self-conception would be worse if I lived someplace like L.A. or Miami than in New England - sometimes even in New York I feel frumpy and dowdy, because I have lots of other things to think about besides choosing the right foundation. Paradoxically, I am vain enough to think that I don't really need those things to be beautiful, but when I see a woman with perfect hair, make-up, body, clothes, I feel a little inferior.

I feel beautiful when I get my hair done and it's all shiny and smooth and straight. I feel beautiful the week after I've had my period. I feel beautiful when I am happy, excited, and/or in love. Weirdly, I also felt beautiful when I was completely miserable a while back, had dropped six pounds in ten days, and my face was pale except for the dark circles under my eyes - I guess I thought I looked tragic and gothic, in addition to being very thin.

I figured out that I was beautiful - or at least not hideous - some time in college. I was so uncomfortable with myself that I just felt awkward all the time and I wanted to melt away, become "a stroke of calligraphy, a thin black line". I had been having some serious difficulties with my family (since I was a kid, really) which left me very shy and reserved, but then I met people who loved and accepted me, my theatre group first and later my friends when I studied abroad, and realized I might not be so bad after all. I had my picture taken by a friend for his art class and then I became a nude model - I wanted to verify my existence. I wanted proof that I was beautiful and that other people could see me. Another time I felt extremely beautiful was when I was at a work-related conference and felt very sure of myself and excited about my work - I was so comfortable I felt like I was just exuding this perfume of beauty which made me feel friendly and attracted people to me.

Now I "know" I am beautiful, more of less, because I have seen the evidence of my being beautiful in my life, e.g. people being interested in me and telling me or other people that they thought I looked nice. However, my features - which are reasonably good, but not perfect by any means - are only part of what makes me beautiful, I think. (Evidence from photos suggests this must be the case.) I can think of several example of men and women who are more or less attractive than their looks alone would suggest based on their personalities and . . . some ineffable qualities about them.

Beauty and self-confidence are so intertwined that it's hard to know which comes first. I go back and forth from loving myself to hating myself and my self-image follows those swings closely. In my case this is very tied up with weight. "I feel so thin!" is me feeling good about myself; "I am so fat" is when I am feeling low. I am learning, though, to be able to talk myself out of my negative self-image and can sort of watch my shape shimmer and change in the mirror.

25.
A brief anecdote:
The other afternoon I was sitting in the patio of the local bar, reading. Generally, people leave me alone whilst reading, but this day two men came over and just sat down. The one asked me the same questions everyone who is rude enough to interrupt always does-
"What are you reading?"
"A book"
"Is it any good?"
"Yes. That is why I am reading it"
"why are you reading a book when you're at a bar?"

Here is where my geographic location comes into play. It's a smallish working class city in New Hampshire:
"So, do you have any kids?"
"no" (I am sitting alone at a bar on a Sunday afternoon reading - what kind of mother am I?)
"You're awfully pretty to not have kids."

This perspective had never been voiced in front of me before, although the attitude seems to fit the local practices (unwed teenage mothers abound in this town). The idea that all pretty girls have kids was just so foreign. As a non-breeder (thus far) I am more familiar with the attitude that ugly (and stupid) people breed more than their more blessed counterparts. Low self esteem (or is it stupidity?) as a significant contributing factor to teen pregnancy is generally held to be true in my don't-have-kids-until-you-can-afford-them-if-you-aren't-going-to-get-married universe. Are the girls in this town having kids to prove that they are attractive? I wouldn't know- but I would like to. Then I could tell you.

26.
What I have found in my life is that if I am in an environment where I feel unsafe, out of control, or insecure, this gets reflected in how I feel about my body. Growing up in an extremely dysfunctional household, I turned all of my sense of personal lack of security into obsessive worrying about my weight, trying to lose weight, and hating my body (I was 5'6", 110 lbs and felt "fat"). When I met my husband, someone who gives me a great sense of personal safety and security, my body image issues almost vanished (only to return when I visit my parents). I am heavier than I have ever been, yet feel thin for the first time. I remember reading somewhere that 95% of women worry about how their bodies look while they are having sex, and I was shocked. Despite all of my body issues, I always feel positive about my body when I am having sex.

When else do I feel good about my body? When I have eaten a really nutritious meal, and I feel like I am really taking care of my body, like it is this amazing machine and I am giving all the right fuel, then I feel good about my body. Similarly with exercise.

My definition of beauty (on my good days) is about a healthy, well functioning body. That is why I think we find pregnant women so beautiful - they couldn't be fatter, yet they just glow with health. Women athletes too - I see Venus Williams, who just looks so strong and powerful, and that is beautiful to me. It is like the physical manifestation of all that I wasn't in my fearful, insecure teen years. A strong female body is a very beautiful thing.

I guess any body can be beautiful if someone exudes confidence. My sister and I are very similar looking, but she always got a lot more attention for her looks when we were young. That was because she believed she was beautiful and I didn't. It wasn't until I had the confidence to believe in myself did I start seeing myself as attractive, and others start seeing me that way as well.

27.
I've always been on the thin side of things, with what's called a "boyish" figure (small breasts and small hips). Over the years, I've obviously heard about how lucky I am to have this body type, and I'm mostly in agreement. What's been interesting to me is my own internalizing of the super-thin-body-craze over the last 15 years or so. (I'm 30 yrs old now.) I've been super careful to make sure people know, either explicitly or implicitly, that I'm not anorexic or a junkie, which has always been a little weird to have to do. I've been subject to verbal jabs that are hurtful along those lines, but have always felt that they must be nothing compared to what "normal-sized" women deal with. I've been called "not womanly enough" by boyfriends, which has been the worst... that I'm not real, or not-something enough to be a woman. (I still get nauseous thinking about those.)

Where it gets really messed up is when I quit smoking about six months ago, and went through the inevitable pound additions. I completely freaked out as I approached the 7-10lbs addition, making me closer to normal body weight than I was before. (I'm 5'9"; smoking weight = 120lbs; non-smoking weight now = 127lbs.) I started obsessing in the mirror that my ass was getting flabby, that my stomach was pinching over my tight low-rise jeans, etc.... all because I was normal, yet still thin, weight. I'd so internalized uber-thin social body images that I was a mess for a couple of weeks, until I snapped out of it and realized what a freak I was being. I'm happy now, haha.

I used to get kind of irritated that I wasn't really "allowed" to talk about my body image issues out loud -- I was too lucky to complain about anything like not ever being able to have a millimeter of cleavage, ever. (Ever.) The good news is, I confessed this all one night to my group of girlfriends, who all struggle with being overweight in some way, and they were all surprisingly understanding and supportive. Ahhhh, the relief of being able to talk about it. Still, in the end, the only person that really gets it in my life is my mom, who has the same body type as me.

28.
I'm a 36-year-old woman who lives in Japan. I'm about 5'8" and 160 pounds, pretty average in the U.S. I believed that I had come to terms with my body image, but living in Japan has forced to me to deal with things all over again.

I'm BIG here. Really BIG. I take up a lot of space. I look grossly larger than almost any other woman. I literally can't buy clothes other than muumuus here--I have to travel back to the U.S. to buy clothes. I like living in Japan for many reasons, but when I go back to the U.S. I always feel a huge sense of relief when I step off the airplane and am actually normal again. No one stares at me in the U.S., I don't feel like a freak.

I've forced myself to not try and wear "skinny" clothes--the sharply tailored and pressed clothes that always made me feel big in the States too, or "fat" clothes like muumuus. I wear a lot of flowing, draping, velvety stuff that shows off my curves and is comfortable.

I've had female students actually grab my breasts or butt and exclaim over how large they are. As you can imagine, that forces a serious crisis of self-image, no matter how well-adjusted one is. My husband's really good at making me feel better about it--mostly by not noticing it at all. I usually just try to remember that I'm pretty normal in America, so that gives me a form of reassurance I might not have if I actually lived in the U.S..

29.
I'm fat. I put up a good front, pretend that my size is not always hovering in the back of my mind when I'm out in public, but it is. Oh, I'm a lot of other things, too - 31, an artist, married, shamelessly liberal.

I didn't used to be as self-conscious about it (at least after high school), or my memory is more selective than I realize. But now, it's with me everyday - the constant waiting for the nasty comments (they happen), feeling certain people are watching me as I pass. Recently at an IHOP, hanging with friends, I was on my way to the restroom and tripped over a turned-up corner of carpet. The table nearest just couldn't stop laughing. They giggled and smirked every time I passed by for the rest of the night.

I won't go out to eat by myself anymore. I won't go to movies by myself anymore. Sometimes it feels like nowhere in public is "safe". I walk quite a lot, and go to they gym pretty regulary. You'd think that people wouldn't make fat cracks when you're working out, but you'd be wrong. In fact, people seem to be nastier when it looks like you are trying to lose weight. My weight has been stable since I was eighteen. I look like every other woman in my family. I don't eat that much more than my skinny friends. My blood pressure and cholesterol levels and vital signs are perfect, always have been. I can walk five miles with no problem, ride the stationary bike for 45 minutes and still have the energy to walk home. I'm as healthy as I'm going to get.

But people persist in assuming I'm lazy, out of control, can't keep my mitts off the fried chicken. And it hurts and makes me angry. But yet, I find myself staying home, rather than telling these people to go screw themselves. And that makes me angry at myself. And sometimes it makes me cry.

30.
As strange as this may sound, despite living with them for more than a decade, I didnÌt particularly notice I had breasts until last October.

IÌm a twenty-two year old woman, 164 pounds with a lot of muscle, and proportionally IÌm a perfect hourglass with a tiny waist, large breasts (34DDDD), and child-bearing hips. UNfortunately (to some), IÌm only 5Ì2Ó, and rather short-waisted to boot - what clothing manufacturers deem ÓpetiteÓ. Trouble is, half the time ÓpetiteÓ styles donÌt allow for my bustline and wide hips, so I have to wear clothes at least two sizes too big in all the other dimensions! As a result, for years I thought I was little more than a shapeless blob...IÌd look at the pictures on the label, compare to the reflection in the mirror, and assume that I must just be an ugly reject. Just like my gigantic t-shirts, I felt like a flat, square rectangle of a person, completely devoid of feminine appeal. In the small town where I grew up, you see, a *real* woman had curves and showed them off (often at the local bar). Since they didnÌt make clothes that were styled for me, I never even got to see my own curves, so I just decided instead that they must not exist. In fact, I started thinking I was hugely fat, and that extra weight must be the reason I was such a ÓbrickÓ of a person! I became obsessed with the idea of losing weight, and went through bouts of depression, anorexia, and general psychotic-ness.

That all changed when I went to Japan last year, for a work-related venture. Since IÌve always felt best about myself (and my weight ÓproblemÓ) while actively working out, I joined a local fitness club and attended it religiously. Now, not to generalize too much, but most of the other female patrons were the traditional Japanese female body shape - small and cylindrical (bust, hip, and waist all very close in measurement). Thus, regardless of their weight, many of the girls looked very similar. After looking at them work out in skin-tight outfits (which leave little to the imagination) I was amazed to realize that I *do* have curves. It was so strange - for the very first time I could look at myself, look at someone else my same height, and notice that WOW! I have BREASTS! This revelation made me reconsider the way IÌd been approaching my body image and my ÓweightÓ problem - I realize now that most of my ÓchunkinessÓ was an illusion, and immediately dumped all the extra-large t-shirts. Now, I have a real tailor modify my clothes so that they fit my figure, and I will never again obsess about losing weight to try and ÓimproveÓ my figure. I was only trying to lose weight because I thought that weight loss instantly made you look more attractive. And you know what? It *doesnÌt*. At 165, I think I actually look better than I did when I was anorexic - my proportions are actually smaller, because most of my weight comes from musculature. Being beautiful is being *healthy* and sticking to the proportions your body was built for...and refusing to hide them with unflattering fashion trends like gypsy shirts ^.~

(And in case anyone wants to bust out the BMI and tell me that I canÌt be attractive because *le gasp* I am ÓoverweightÓ, I got news for you...the BMI doesnÌt mean ANYTHING. According to the BMI, my best friend in Japan (also 5Ì2Ó) and I should weigh the same, because we are the same height - POPPYCOCK! If I was her weight, IÌd look skeletal, which is NOT sexy because it looks unhealthy. However, since her proportions are much smaller, she looks fine as a slender little thing :)

31.
I feel absolutely NO pressure to feel or look "beautiful". I'm a woman, in fact a bio-woman, but I know bio-men who are more feminine than I am. "Beauty" doesn't mean anything to me. Literally. It's nothing but a marketing term. When I hear it, the only thing that springs to mind is ads for expensive skin goop. "Smear this on your skin and feel beautiful." It's like a massive chemical bukkake and I refuse to be part of it.

I don't wear makeup. I don't wear skirts more than once or twice a year. I don't buy haircuts; my hair is down to my waist and when it gets too many split ends I chop them off. The only goop I buy for my hair is shampoo and, on occasion, dye of an unnatural color. I don't shave my legs unless I'm just that bored. The only reason I shave my armpits is to make it easier to apply deodorant.

The words I consider in regards to my appearance are "nice", which means "dressed in a manner I can get away with at the professional or social event I'm attending", and "sexy", which should be obvious and is generally not compatible with "nice". I'm bisexual, engaged to a woman, and would never EVER date anyone who thought or said that I was unattractive. My existence isn't about pleasing the person I'm with. In the past during the times I was unattached, my existence was not centered around attracting someone. My actions on different occasions have been intended to attract people, but that's not the same thing as making it the basis of my life.

32.
I am a teacher and greatly enjoy being around kids all day long. The majority of my students come from a low socioeconomic background, and I've always thought that it is important to demonstrate that enjoyment and quality of life are not directly correlated to clothes and other tangible items. Though every day I aim to look professional and well kept, fashion, sex appeal and style are not of concern, for the most part, that is. A teacher joined our staff who is very much focused on looks and style. While she always looks cute and up to date with the latest styles and the students notice too. When she walks into the room, the students are all looking to see what new earrings she is wearing, what new stylish shoes, etc. The focus has gone from learning to examining every object attached to this beautiful woman. While it is important to promote positive self-care, I don't know that this is the best for the students, who now focus more on what they have than who they are. I decided that teachers are people too, and if a teacher is stylish by nature, that is fine. However, if that is what this person values, the students will pick up on it right away, and that reinforces a different sort of values system for these students.

33.
Have you ever heard the song "When I was a Boy" by Dar Williams? It may seem silly but that song makes me cry. How I felt about myself before I went through puberty and how I felt afterward were so radically different that everyone in my family noticed the change in my personality. They were actually concerned that something truly traumatic had happened to me and in a sense they were correct. I went from feeling complete ownership and mastery of my body to feeling like it was public property, something to be stared at, remarked upon and grabbed by anyone who felt like it.

I was a very athletic and tomboyish child and I appreciated myself for what my body could accomplish not what I looked like or what other people thought. After I hit about 12 or 13 I started getting comments from (mostly adult) men and boys. I was tall for my age with long blond hair but not voluptuous and I hoped that they were mistaking me for an older girl. This sudden attention combined with the the changes I was physically going through caused me to withdraw from people in a big way. I had people telling me in the most disturbing terms possible that I was attractive to them but I also had people my own age mocking me for my dress and hairstyles.

I stopped playing certain sports and took far less joy in physical activity in general because I was so self concious. As I gained weight later in high school and in college my life became much more comfortable. Men paid less attention to me and my discomfort in public largely disappeared. Trouble is now I was fat, I experienced little joy in my physicality and I felt very unattractive. This feeling of disgust with myself has permeated my personal relationships and exacerbated bouts of depression.

I am now thirty and I have reclaimed a certain amount of my physical comfort and spirit. I have done that by doing what made me happiest in the first place. I have been physical and active and largely unconcerned with what other people think of my body. Beauty to me is comfort with oneself and experiencing your body as something that contains life and energy not just within its appearance. It has not been an easy conclusion to come to.

34.
've always been conscious of the shape of my body, but since I've always been active and fit, it was never that big a deal - until my junior year of high school. My chorus teacher was coaching a Miss Georgia hopeful who decided to test out her platform on the captive audience that was our class. Her platform? Eating disorder awareness. My reaction? "Bulimia can make you look like that? For serious, you got to eat whatever you wanted, but you stayed skinny?" I struggled with eating disorders for six years after that, and off and on for the past two (I'm now 24). The biggest slams to my self-image have been any shallow comparison with other women: for eight months, I was the thinnest girl in the office, which was great, until we got a thinner girl and suddenly, without changing at all physically, I hated my body. The girl and I became friends, and as we started working out together and my body improved, I became somewhat happier, my self-image improved, but there was always that comparison with the other girl, who was so unnaturally thin I'd never be able to catch up. Looking back, I'm pretty sure it wasn't so much a friendship as just keeping my enemies closer.

A lot of my body-consciousness comes from my family. My dad is a doctor and my mom was a nurse, so we ate healthily my entire childhood. Then, when we moved and Dad got a new, more time-consuming job, he started to gain weight. That meant that we all went on a diet. My body has always followed the shape of my dad, tall and slightly pear-shaped and prone to more heaviness, whereas I'd love to take after my petite, naturally thin and delicate mother. Dad spent all of his time worrying about his weight, and mine, too, since I looked like him. Sometimes it made me angry, but for the most part, it just made me more determined to get down to my mother's tiny, lithe body. This was NOT going to happen.

A year and a half ago, I changed jobs: to a major, national fashion industry publication. I don't think I've felt pretty since I started here. Even if I'm in a good mood when I leave my apartment, it'll all be gone when I get to work and face down six-foot-tall, size-2 models and stylists. Even worse than that, though, is the other writers. Models, I expect to be far skinnier than me; I'd hope that at least the writers would have body shapes comparable to mine, but the industry pretty much dictates that every body associated with it be lanky and runway-ish. My fit, capable body with its average BMI makes me look positively Rubenesque next to the other girls. I hate the fact that I love my body, but then feel ashamed of it when I'm around other, thinner people.

Interestingly enough, the only time the self-consciousness really goes away is when I'm around guys, especially when there aren't other girls around. Then, I can be interesting and funny and intelligent enough to keep their interest, largely becasue I don't spend all my time comparing myself unfavorably inside my head. The attention I get leaning into the engine compartment of a classic muscle car to check the carbuerator makes me think that maybe my body is okay after all. Unfortunately, this translated into a few regrettable instances of promiscuity in my past, a search for approval of my body from anyone, at any cost. But now, it's resulting in more friendships than anything else, and the occasional bit of schadenfreude when another girl can't get with her skinny behind what I can get with my brain.

To this day, though, I find myself hanging out with more heavy girls than anything else. It makes me feel guilty; we really are good friends, that much is true, but I know I cultivate friendships with some girls knowing that standing next to them will make me look comparatively thin. My last relationship lasted five years and almost ended in marriage, and while his family was completely nuts, I loved spending time with them if only because not a one of them was within 50 pounds of a healthy weight. In fact, his mother used to get onto me for being so thin and eating so healthily. She made me crazy, but I still miss her sometimes.

35.
I am 30 years old, and live in Washington state. I have been overweight most of my life. when I was in high school it didn't seem to matter much to me. I had a large group of friends and a steady boyfriend, and was very active in Theater and Music. My time was full and I had little opportunity to worry about my body. After graduating, many things changed. I couldn't afford to go to college, and spent most of my time working go-nowhere jobs and hanging out with friends, different friends than I had in high school. While some of these friends were (and still are) dear to me, sadly the majority of them were not very savory people. I began using marijuana and drinking heavily, and sleeping with anybody who showed any interest in me, and became even more overweight. Looking back at this time, I see the bad choices I made. One in particular that stands out is that I had a crush on a coworker of mine who was also a close friend. Instead of taking the plunge and taking a chance on happiness, I tried to set him up with a friend of mine who I thought was much prettier than myself... at any rate, she was much more slender! The whole thing exploded, and I lost a friend because of it. Shortly after that I met a man in a bar, and without thinking, rushed into a marriage with him. I believe that my terrible self-image led me to make that choice, thinking that I should take whatever I could get. He turned out to be a lying, thieving, criminal and left me with a three-month old son and a mountain of debt. This was my rock-bottom point. At that time I made the decision to go back to school and make something of my life, especially since I now had a young child to look after. I got a degree and now work in a pharmacy. I am continuing my education still, working towards my goal of becoming a pharmacist. I have met a wonderful man who I am marrying next year. I still have self-image issues, but they have really taken a back seat. He thinks that I am beautiful, and that helps me feel that way. I feel sexy when I am around him, because he thinks me so. My son is a snuggly, well-adjusted 5 year old who is about to start kindergarten.

36.
I have absolutely no idea what I really look like to outside eyes. No clue.
I don't read magazines. I don't watch MTV or any of those other channels designed to sell you stuff thatÐs in. I despise clothes-shopping in ways you canÐt really measure on any normal scale. So, because I'm not really paying attention to numbers and stick figures, I know that I'm of below average weight.
But, the dysmorphic thing is so intense, even without shopping, or model-obsessing, or giving a shit about my muscle tone, that I couldnÐt correctly pick my own shillouette out of a line up.
I remember, reading years ago, after the morphing software got big, that given three pictures of themself (1 real photo, 1 made thinner, and another made larger) 90% of women think they have the body that is heavier than they actuallly are.
So, when I hear the stats about obesity, I still sometimes wonder are they talking about me? At what point do you move from "healthy birthing hips and a hell of an ass" to "single-handedly bringing down the health average of the nation?"
I know what's normal in the real world. But, if the average is unhealthy then, maybe, I, being around average, am unhealthy.
Then I chill, because IÐve had a physical recently, and I know IÐm just tripping on a fat ghost.
Because, I've been larger.
When I was 16 they put me on Ortho-Tri Cyclen.
I was at 122 in March when I started. I was at 150 when school started that September. I was 175 when I got married in June, at the end of the school year.
And, at the time it didn't at all occur to me that it might be the Pill.
I thought I was just lazy. That my metabolism had slowed down. That I was eating too much. That my genes were messing with my jeans (And, eventually, my genes will catch up with me.)
So, I did step arobics. Water arobics. Walking. Kicking. Lunging. Crying. I went vegetarian. I stopped drinking soda. I cried some more.
I knew that the mood-swings were the pillÐs doing. So, I knew that the crying over my weight was just chemical rediculousness. But never once did I imagine that the weight itself could be blamed on the pills.
That whole time, I blamed myself.
When I got divorced, I dropped the Pill, because I wasnÐt planning on having sex, and I wanted to see if the damned pill had done what it was prescribed for in the first place--regulating my periods.
I went from a 14-bordering-on-16 to a size 8 in about 5 months. From 175 back down to 120.
That was the most enlightening Body Image Experience I've ever had.
Because, when you're a heavy teenager, 98% of the time, you think, I'm lazy. I eat too much. I have no willpower. (The other 2% is spent on those nights you dress up, and think, Damn, I'm cute, and when will I ever be hotter than at 18?!?, then one of your girlfriends makes a snide remark.)
I'm less active, now. I don't diet, now. I am honestly, far less iron-willed than I was at 17 and 18. I eat more, and what I eat isn't as good; I'm a couch potato and a computer sloth, these days. But I haven't gained that weight back. That 50 pounds wasn't anything I could control. Period.

37.
I'm thirty now, and it turns out I really did think I would be young forever. Not so. I'm in a relationship with a man three years younger who is more openly focused on women's appearance than anyone I've been with before. He seems to walk through life scanning the terrain for beauty. It didn't bother me at first, but I seem to be entering some sort of crisis of jealousy and insecurity now. I'm quite attractive, but it doesn't matter. I feel weak and suspicious. I can't stand that I'm in this mental state of fretting about my looks. Sexualized images of women are everywhere, and I'm no longer as firm or lineless as these fantasy objects. But those images remain the favored fodder for my boyfriend; his ideal does not change as he ages, or I do. I've never recognized such pointed jealousy in myself before, and I long to feel calm and secure. I feel like I'm in some vague competition. I hate that I think about this so much. I know I'm beautiful but I don't rack up confidence points from the attentions of other men. I'm obsessed with the wandering attention of my mate and his is the only attention and desire that I covet. I don't know if the answer lies in me, in building my self-esteem, or whether I'm with the wrong person--someone that will always trigger feelings of insufficiency in me because of his way of appraising the world. Sometimes he reminds me that I'm the one he wants, but it feels like I loosed a dragon (this gnawing fear and jealousy) and I can't reverse it. I feel so small. I'm angry. I'm angry that I went out and bought sexy lingerie today in hopes of becoming hotter than anyone he can find on SuicideGirls. I want to be the goddess. And I'm pissed that he's making me feel this way, even though his behavior has not changed. What changed? What is wrong with me? I want to be with someone who does not fit this cliched rule about male focus. I don't want to treat myself like an object. I want my self-esteem back. I want to tell my boyfriend to go to hell and I want to become a lesbian. I want to love myself. I think I'll just love myself wildly, out of rage, sadness, whatever it takes. There is no other choice, no other way to combat the daily siege, his daily appetites. There is no way to win except to turn the fight off. I'm afraid if I really start loving myself, I won't love him anymore.

38.
I'm an American female currently living in Japan. I've got a pretty good body by American standards, but over here, well, it's not exactly the norm. The clothes don't fit me. I teach english to middle school students, and they ask me about my cup size. While I often feel pretty frumpy, at the same time I find myself with this new mystery that I never had back home. This is taken from a blog entry of mine. Growing up in new jersey as just another jewish girl with curly brown hair, I never felt very special or unique. I mean, who wasn't jewish with curly brown hair in new jersey? My secret desire was to be exotic. I wanted that mystery that my circumstances just didn't afford me.

But then I came to Japan. Now I feel like a tucan in the middle of washington square park, and all the pigeons are pecking me to death. Yes, I finally got that mystique, and naturally, I resent the hell out of it.

If I get accosted by another random stranger with their one english phrase "teach me english", I may explode. I know they're trying. And I know how hard it must be for them to even ask me. But it just disgusts me so much. These people want me to teach them english under the guise of friendship. Every relationship I make is tainted by the suspicion that I'm only being used for my language ability.
Of course, this is all rather naive. I mean, on a very basic level having breasts (another characteristic i've no control over) has been the catalyst of a startling amount of my relationships with people. It's pretty bitter too. Teaching english and internationalization is what I'm paid to do. And we all complain about the poor state of english education here in Japan, and now that people actually go out of their way I do anything but encourage them.

It all comes back to being exotic. When you're different based soley on something you can't control you feel like people are only interested in you for that reason, and no one looks beyond the obvious. I feel that all my relationships are exchanges. Which again, is extra naive. All relationships are an exchange. But back home, when I was just another kid, the exchange was based more often than not on who i was as a person and not how i looked and spoke. Here, all foreigners are looked at as though they're the same. Exotic and mysterious, but a monolithic other. Perhaps I'm more a dime a dozen here than I ever was at home.

What's funny, though, is that while here my ideals have shifted. I've begun to assimilate to the norms here. I got my curly hair straightened. I've worn summer kimono, and loved it. I once wanted to be exotic, but now I just want to fit in.

39.
I am a 33 year old mom living in Oklahoma. I do pilates and take care of myself, and am a normal size six. Sure my body has imperfections, such as one breast larger than the other due to nursing, but only once I got into my thirties did i actually start to love myself and take care of myself. Living in the midwest is a real trip because everybody here is fat. The midwest is serious fast food nation. I always notice the overweight women and how unhappy they seem to be. I travel to Europe twice a year for my husband's work and I am always so pleasantly amazed at how confident the European women are and how much better they seem to take care of themselves.
I truly believe that every woman is beautiful, or at least capable of being beautiful, if she has self esteem and confidence. Also, beauty comes from within. Women in America are very insecure:look at all of the plastic surgery going on!

40.
I am 17 years old, a high school senior in NJ. My nationality is Korean.

I've always hated my body type, chubby, short, wide-hipped, but with no breasts(thank you asian genetics), hard to maintain a thin figure. especially for me, with a small frame, so even a little extra weight shows. I've pretty much been overweight my entire life, but never obese or fat, so even though my parents constantly commented on my weight, I never really attempted to diet or such. I inherited my parents ideal of female beauty, which is really the asian ideal, small and thin. thin wristed, thin ankles, thin everything, very skinny. After I moved back to the US, right when I hit my early teens, this was in part replaced by the American ideal--not really that different, just add on big boobs, ass, and a tan.

middle school sucked. puberty in full swing. I weighed 120 lbs, which was supposed to be normal, even if I was short--5'2. but I still looked overweight. thick hips, thighs, arms, round cheeked. other girls already looked like women, with womanly figures. I never had much self-confidence, can't say I was the happiest of children. I was the weird nerdy asian girl. didn't help there was only, what, 3 other asians in the school. all thinner than I was.

then I moved to NJ. it was marginally better. I had a asian group of friends I could fit into, and the diversity meant the kids were used to seeing asians around, so no racism. I gained 10 lbs. my mom told me it was normal for growing children to be chubby. I was always partly self-conscious that I was overweight, but never really thought about it overmuch until some time around my junior year, when I was 16. I became bulimic, extremely, EXTREMELY conscious of my body and how it looked to others, my life somehow centered around what and how much I ate. I dropped 35 pounds in 8 weeks--that was when I weighed 90 pounds,at my lowest.

I don't exactly remember what triggered this so suddenly, but I'm pretty sure at least in part was because I was rejected by a boy I asked out. It was the first time I ever made the first move. Also around this time was when guys started paying serious attention to me. My friends, especially girlfriends, kept on complementing me on how pretty I was, then later how skinny I am, etc etc. Of course I loved this. It made me pathetically happy, I thought, finally, I'm not ugly after all. At the same time this really pissed me off, why couldn't people have told me this eariler? It sure as hell would have helped my self-esteem a whole lot.

I had never thought of myself as beautiful. I hate my face, the way it looks. and here were all these people saying how pretty I was, how attractive, etc etc. It confused the hell out of me. It also gave me a big head. I was alternately starving myself, then bingeing and throwing it all back up. It got bad, really bad. At the same time I never felt better. Eventually my fear of the damage I was doing to my body grew enough that I stopped. I gained back most of my weight.

I can't say that I feel any less pressured to be thinner now. I still have that thin ideal. my self-esteem has improved, though, and I've learned some things during my sickness.

41.
I'm a 28 year old woman living in Austria. I'm Canadian by citizenship and I teach English as a foreign language over here.

It was a constant struggle with my self-image growing up. I was a chubby kid and that was absolutely unacceptable to my thin mother, who is 108 lbs at 5 foot 3 after 4 children. She would point to my Barbie doll and ask me why I couldn't be like her (the fact that she didn't resemble Barbie either probably never did occur to her). As I was part of an ethnic minority where I lived, there were no people like me in the mainstream media.

I'm Chinese by descent and the standards back in my parents' homeland were even more restrictive. If a 5 foot 3 woman weighed as much as a 100 lbs, she was considered too fat. Most of my Chinese friends are tiny, I know quite a few who barely tilt the scale at 84lbs. I'm a big-boned, broad-shouldered 5 foot 8 woman. Even at my current weight of 135lbs, I'll still be considered fat and be told to my face to lose weight.

My self-image was pretty poor through my teen years, it wasn't until I reached my 20s that I realized that I am an attractive woman. I lost weight, got contact lens, and met many different people at university. It probably wasn't till then I realized that very few people in real life look like airbrushed actors/models/singers. It also hit me then that many successful women and men were not beautiful in the conventional sense. Rather it is their personal charm, intelligence and other qualities which made them people I admired.

While I came to these revelations, I also came to the revelation that I am a beautiful woman in the physical sense. My skin is smooth, luminous and cellulite-free. My breasts are full and my bottom pert. My eyes are large and sparking, my cheekbones high and defined. At the rest of sounding conceited, I've yet to see a more perfectly-shaped nose and lips than mine. My teeth are naturally straight. Other than makeup and basic skincare, I've never had any cosmetic enhancements done.

It was probably living in Europe that changed my attitudes towards beauty than anything else. Here it's perfectly acceptable for TV newscasters to have crooked, stained teeth and sagging faces. Many 20 somethings, even those in the modelling business, have crow's feet and other wrinkles. Many woman have very strong features not usually in line with a softer ideal of feminine beauty. Although there are cosmetic surgery practices, there seems to be little of this obsession about silicone breasts, botox and liposuction. Yet they seem to think that they are attractive women and spend considerable money and effort on hair and fashion.

In conclusion, I would like to say that there are very few people in the world whom I think are truly beautiful in the physical sense. This excludes a lot of the hyped "beautiful people" in the media, who are more a creation of their publicity firms than anything else. These rare people I admire the way I would admire a rainbow or carefully executed painting, like so many others. The rest of us (including myself) could content ourselves in the fact that someone, somewhere thinks we are beautiful to behold. It only takes one.

42.
I am a 34 year old white female. I am a litigator employed by a large law firm in the Northeast. I was born an American citizen but I grew up in various places overseas and on the East Coast of the United States. My father was a professional and a graduate of an Ivy League College. My mother was a high school graduate who spent my childhood years initially as a homemaker and later on as a secretary.

As a young child I was conscious of being bigger than my best friend. In fact, we were both skinny but she was skinnier so I felt big in comparison. It did not bother me in the slightest. I had enormous ambitions to accomplish great things (discover cure for cancer, become a visionary architect, win a Nobel in literature) and I scorned girls who worried about simply being pretty. In fact, my father used to wonder out loud about whether I would grow up to be a great beauty or an ugly duckling. These musings were affectionate and I almost preferred the idea of being an ugly duckling, like some of my favorite heroines from children's literature. Anne of Green Gables was supposed to be very plain (although she grew up to be very pretty) and I liked the idea of being homely but smart and accomplished.

But somehow when I was twelve this all changed. I don't know exactly why but I suddenly developed a huge fear of getting fat. My parents were perfectionistic and extremely judgmental of other people who fell short of their standards -- whether it was children who had trouble academically (which I did not), people who kept sloppy houses, people who were irresponsible, unreliable, stupid, or lazy, people who dressed badly, or people who were overweight. My mother was a Martha Stewart type who always kept a beautiful house, cooked fabulous meals, dressed beautifully, and had a wonderful figure. I think as I hit puberty and my body was no longer stick-thin, I became very anxious about becoming fat because I did not want to be one of those lazy, unstylish people my parents seemed to judge so harshly. I also think I secretly believed I didn't quite meet their standards of being a worthy person (standards which I internalized) on a number of levels so I started to obsess about dieting and food as a way to punish myself for my inadequacies. Somehow everyone else had earned the right to enjoy their food, but not me.

Another factor that contributed to my anxieties was my utter ignorance of nutrition. I would feel guilty about eating ice because I didn't realize that water has no calories! Also, I might feel happy for a moment if someone mentioned how thin I was or when it turned that at 85 pounds, I was the lightest person in my 8th grade class, but then I would think, "Well, that's no longer gonna be true because I just had a huge meal." Or I would think, "Well, that compliment was last week and think of how much fatter I must look after all I have eaten since then."

I don't think that media images caused my problem, but they didn't help. In my early teens, I constantly compared my weight to everyone I met or saw on television or in the movies. It certainly did seem that everyone on television was wonderfully thin! There were simply no heroines on television who were not beautifully thin.

Anyway, I really tortured myself about food and my weight from about age 12 to age 16. I don't think I had a diagnosable eating disorder. I never threw up or used laxatives, and I was never told that I was underweight. (My mother once joked that she would worry that I was anorexic if I didn't like chocolate so much.) There is no doubt that I was body dismorphic however. And there is no doubt that my negative body image dominated my psyche during those years. I cried for several hours when my weight finally hit 100 pounds!

I couldn't really be happy ever because I never felt that I was disciplined enough about my diet. When I was 15, my parents and I took a trip to a fabulous European resort with wonderful cuisine. I had an absolutely miserable time worrying about every meal I had eaten and every meal I was going to eat and trying to catch glimpses of my reflection to assess whether I looked okay. I wished my parents would send me to fat camp so that I could have someone help me control my weight (yes, really, fat camp, even though I barely topped 100 pounds).

Then all the self-imposed pressure to diet would get to me, and I would binge on a regular basis. (A binge for me would be something like four mayonnaise and cheese sandwiches and a pint of ice cream.) I never really got fat though (I realize now), finishing high school at 5'4" and 118 pounds.

Somehow by the time I ended my teens I became more realistic about my body image. I think education helped a lot. I read about eating disorders and I knew that it was something I had to avoid. I also understood nutrition better so I knew that fasting was not an effective way to keep my weight down over the long term. I talked myself into valuing health and the enjoyment of life more than body image. While I wasn't as obsessed as I was in my early teens, I continued to worry quite a lot about my weight. There might be weeks when I wouldn't think about it but then one unfortunate glimpse in the mirror or a hint of cellulite on my thigh could suddenly wreck my whole day or week. And trips to buy clothes were always traumatic-- having to see myself from all angles in those horrid dressing room mirrors.

Over time though I think I have managed to develop a pretty healthy attitude. I stayed at a steady 114 pounds during most of my twenties but somehow wound up at 124 over the last couple of years. I still care about being thin and in shape, but I realize that those things are not the "be all and end all" of a happy, worthwhile life. I am successfully making my way back down to 114 with a balanced diet and excercise. I am trying to enjoy the process and trying to appreciate my body even at 124 (my heaviest).

Factors that have helped to avoid developing a full blown eating disorder include: 1) engaging in competitive sports (long distance running) during my teens and twenties. It helped me to value my body for reasons other than appearance. I know runners often develop eating disorders but fortunately I don't think my running contributed to my eating obsession. I never had a coach tell me I had to lose weight, thank goodness! 2) Making a conscious decision to develop a healthier attitude and lifestyle was probably the most important factor for me. 3) Although my body obsessions had less to do with pleasing men than pleasing myself, it has helped enormously to be married for 8 years to an appreciative and supportive husband. 4) In my late twenties, career obsessions eclipsed body obsessions. I care a lot more about accomplishing things in the professional world than anything else. 5) I also feel that I am now respected and valued for a lot of things besides the way I look, whereas in my youth, the way I looked was the thing people most often commented on. In a way, the numerous compliments about my looks as a young person only served to make me MORE worried and self-conscious and focused on my looks. Now, as an older, married professional person, I rarely get such compliments except from my husband so looks seem a lot less important than I was 15.

43.
Some basics: I live in Boulder, Colorado, sometimes called "The Thinnest Town in America." It's a place replete with Olympians, professional athletes, competing amateurs, mountain jocks, gym rats and wannabes. I'm thirty-one, white, a professional artist with a managerial second job. I've always been a fairly radical feminist, highly versed in the dynamics of objectification and patriarchy. However, I had intense body image issues. I'd grown up in Southern California, with the almost obligate eating disorder. I obsessed about food and weight, and ate compulsively. When I moved here, I had been an artist's model in the Bay Area for seven years, and modeled a little when I first moved here, to make ends meet. Most of the artists I worked with preferred a more Rubenesque body, and were delighted when I shaved my head. I did modern dance three to five times a week, but wasn't particularly athletic, nor had I ever considered myself to be so, nor had I ever wanted to be. Two years after I moved here, I fell in love with a former pro skier and serious mountain biker. I hiked a 12,000 foot mountain with him not long before we broke up, and I discovered that while the experience of doing it was physically excruciating and difficult, it was also possible, and ecstatic. After we broke up, I was in deep emotional pain, and threw myself into athletics to prove to myself that I could do what he did, that I was worthy of love, that I was capable of being what I semi-consciously believed he wanted me to be. I experienced a lot of self-hatred in the process, turning my pain on myself, telling myself that if I was thin or strong enough, he would have wanted to stay with me - something that I logically knew to be untrue. I ran almost every night, including in snowstorms. I did pull-ups on a door frame. I hiked far higher than my ex ever had, enduring pain and building my fitness and strength in the process. No accomplishment was ever enough, and I didn't know the meaning of the phrase, "pace yourself." I probably gave myself a chronic case of adrenal exhaustion. However, I kept at it, and developed the ability to not only hike that high, but run up mountains over 14,000 feet tall. I trail run, work out, and dance with far more proficiency than I ever have before. I occasionally race, to test my own abilities, and I'm investigating what I think will be my first marathon. On trips up 14er, I've had more mystical experiences than I've had in ten years of practicing Zen. When physically in shape, I feel a power that I feel from no other kind of accomplishment. I don't value that power over my intellect, my instinct, my creativity or my spirituality, but I value it deeply. I've almost forgotten my ex, now. I'm still powerfully fit, though my body waxes and wanes in its congruency with the local ideal. Right now, due to an injury, I'm less muscular and more plump than I've been since I started this strange journey. I rarely feel insecure about that, and my new boyfriend is a triathlete who adores my body and is unquestioningly committed to me. When I'm exercising a lot, I also eat about twice as much as I do when I'm not (simply to get enough calories and satisfy my authentic appetite), and I enjoy the food without reservation.

44.
Hmmm- a toughy and I only have a moment though I could spend hours on this response. I usually feel pretty crappy about myself. I always feel fat and usually pretty clumsy and un-put-together especially if I am all dressed up- I always feel like if I am dressed to look nice, I should be thinner or prettier or something to fit the character. I am constantly preoccupied with my self image and if I feel I am out of favor with friends/family, it can become an obsessive distraction. What did I do? What can I do to make it better? They must hate me....etc. I also just got out of a long and intense live-in relationship. My self image was in a hole about three thousand feet deep- I wasn't pretty enough, sexy enough, funny enough, etc. Then it sky-rocketed when I had my first new romantic interlude. Then it fell again the next day when I started doubting this new dude's attraction to me and I started to wonder how quickly he would lose interest in me. And so it continues in this cycle. Moments when I feel best about myself usually occur when I am alone and no one is there with the possibility of inflicting judgement. Daily life is a lot easier when I am alone cause I don't have to worry so much about what other people think of me... but sometimes it's a lot lonelier, too.

45.
I am nineteen years old, I've been in college for two years, and I work in a kitschy coffeeshop on the trendy east side of town. Every day the way I feel about my body changes.

I don't know if I'm just noticing it, if I've just "put myself on the market", or if I really am just coming of age, but I'm getting more and more attention for my body, and I'm really mixed as to how I should feel about it.

When I was younger, I never got attention like this. I was not an attractive child, and I don't recall being an attractive teenager, either. But all of a sudden, I'm getting all kinds of special attention from men-- from work to school to the grocery store and everywhere else.

I always thought that it'd feel good to have somebody notice my body like that. i always thought it'd be flattering to walk by a construction site and hear a chorus of hoots and hollers thrown my way. Like it'd make me feel hotter. More appreciated. Whatever. My whole life, I'd been plain and boring, and nobody seemed to notice me. I'd had a boyfriend or two, who always "loved me for my mind". But nobody really noticed me.

I'm bisexual. I've been this way forever, but I've only come out a year ago. I've always noticed women. I don't have a whole lot of experience with women, but I've always noticed them. I remember I always used to notice the really "hot" ones. Hot, I mean, by today's social standards: round, firm breasts, full, bouncy hair, a flat stomach, a glittering smile, a flawless complexion. I always noticed those women.

I've grown up or something since then. I can't tell you what's changed. But I'm getting catcalls and unwanted attention all the time. At work, middleaged male customers old enough to be my father make crude suggestions and take every chance they get to get an eyefull. Guys who drive by me when I'm biking down the road honk their horn and yell at me, and it scares the crap out of me-- I've fallen more than once. At school, I can feel more and more gazes following me, more and more men trying to look up my skirt in the lecture halls, more and more attention that I thought would make me feel better, but just makes me feel dirty. I thought it would be flattering. But it disgusts me all of a sudden. Now I'm just another woman walking down the street telling the construction workers to fuck off.

It's frustrating. But I've noticed one thing: My taste in women has changed. I remain pretty much unexperienced as I always have, but my tastes have changed. Now I notice the natural beauties more and more. They are thin, but not horribly thin. They are healthy. They have uncolored hair, falling in messy waves or stick straight, or however it looks, untouched by curling irons or blowdriers or hairspray. If they're wearing makeup, I sure as hell can't tell-- flawless skin is fake. I like freckles. I like a slightly flawed complexion. I think it's sexy to see a girl's flaws. We all have them, however well we cover them up. But confidence allows a girl to not only break the social norms, but to show her flaws, and be stronger for it.

And so, I'm still not entirely secure with my body-- I know I have flaws. I have a belly that I'm not proud of, and my hair is gross-- I'm trying to grow out this overdyed mess on my head. I distinctly remember dyeing over my beautiful blonde hair, making it a dark, "sexy" black, for the attention of a man. But why would I change part of who I am, just for the attention of someone I really like? Even if I win his affection, I won't be winning it-- the person I've become will win it. I'll be acting, and he'll love my character. But I don't want to act forever. I've had my fling with conventional attention from mankind, and I don't like it.

It'll be awhile before I can reach my new ideal of beauty. For one, I'm going to have to start treating myself better. I can't have a natural beautiful body if I keep it up with this starving myself, binge eating, over exercising, sitting on my ass, starving myself cycle. It will also be a long time before I have my own hair back. It'll be a couple years before I can have sexy, unkempt natural waves tumbling down my back. It'll take some time for me to become confident with this. It'll also be hard to do without the support of my all-male fanclub. Confidence is key; it makes all the difference between a mousy, plain girl and a naturally beautiful, charming woman.

Wow, that sounds cliche. It's everything I've ever been told. Nothing I'd have believed two years ago. Natural beauty is amazing. Turns out my mother was right all along; confidence is everything.

46.
I watch my roommate get ready for school every day. She showers. She spends twenty minutes blow drying her hair straight, twenty more curling it, and then twenty more doing her makeup. By the time she's done, I do have to admit that she looks smashing. She could be a movie star, she could be a celebrity, she could be anything. But she's my roommate. But I watch her do this every day, and if I didn't know better, I don't think I'd recognize her. I wonder sometimes what it is she's trying so hard to cover up. She's such a beautiful girl. Guys love her. They love her with the makeup and they love her without.

I go out for pizza with her sometimes, late at night, after she's taken off her makeup, messed up her hair, and put on a pair of sweatpants and an old teeshirt. I think she feels ugly then. She doesn't get the same attention then. Usually she has guys talking to her, going out of their way to yell at her, meet her, get her phone number. But when we go out, and the makeup is off and the hair is down, they still notice her. They just respect her a whole lot more. They watch her quietly, when they don't think she's looking. I see them do it, too.

I wish she could see it-- people DO love her the way she is, and there's nothing to cover up. But every day, she spends an hour doing it, and then another half hour undoing it. That's an hour and a half a day. Ten and a half hours a week. Ten percent of her waking life is spent preparing to live. She doesn't NEED to spend all that time. She looks better off without. Imagine what she could do with that time.

47.
I am a 49 year old professional woman, with postgraduate degrees, whose primary source of favorable input has been male evaluations of my body. Ain't that sad? I've gotten better. And worse.

I was lucky. I was gifted with a fine figure. Broad shoulders, slender hips. Like my mother, though, I was given an ample bosom. The family curse, men and women both, for several generations, is a wide waist. However, we also share broad shoulders, narrow hips, and an easily muscular frame, given the proper exercise regimen.

Obviously, I never would be the ideal foldout with tiny bones, or even the regular girls with thin thighs. Still, many men found me attractive with an hour-glass-figure, when I kept my waist in check, and did sit-ups for hours. My belly is definitely my weak spot, and after that, my thighs, and for some men, my meaty booty. I kept a good attitude about my body until I was 17 and was diagnosed as hypoglycemic. I lost about 12 pounds my senior year on a strict no-carb dieat, and every girl I knew (including one who ended up a Playboy model) complimented me. I thought I was stringy, but I realized then that starvation was what women did.

I was young enough to ignore this lesson until I was preparing for my wedding day at 23 years old. I simply stopped eating. I was amazed at how easy it was -- I smoked then, and had a cigarette when I was hungry, or a stalk of celery. I weighed 118 at the time of the wedding, about 12 pounds less than usual for my 5'5" frame with a heavy bust. For the next 5 years I bounced around that 12 pounds. I divorced my husband, lost the weight and learned bulimia to get to 112, my lowest adult weight. I would have gotten lower, but my ex was with me, horrified, and put a pillowcase over my head with eyeholes, then pointed me to the mirror. I saw a skeletal girl. When he pulled the pillowcase off I looked so fat. I didn't know what to believe. I stayed slim until I quit drinking, then I met my second husband and cooked for him abundantly.

Let's face it -- food is sex. A seductive, sexy meal, well-cooked (and I am an excellent gourmet cook) is worth a few pounds. By the time I was ready to marry my second husband, I weighed 140 pounds and was 37. I weighed 120 at the wedding -- I was a total gym rat, all muscle and no fat. My breasts looked like banana peels.

By the end of that marriage, ten years later, I weighed 195 pounds. I was miserable. I felt like a failure as a human being. Listen, I was a powerful professional -- a lawyer at the top of the field -- and I hated what I had become. Nothing fit. I wore tents. My husband found me repulsive. I ate because I was unhappy, because I had a hole inside me, because I'd get high and food sounded good (munchies!).

I went on another crash diet, this time with pills. So far so good. I got down (lw:137, fall 2004) and stayed in the 140's, OK for a woman in her late 40's with boobs. I am currently addicted to diet pills. I'm OK with that, I'm happy when I take them. I shouldn't, because on the days when I don't take them, I stay in bed and want to die. I am now single, with many male friends and sex partners, and still am struggling, even with the pills. I don't know why I eat so much. I can go all day without eating and at night it's crazy, I am so hungry I eat butter and jam without the bread. I want to get back to about 135 and stay there, but I weigh 155. I do Pilates and it is good for me. I have about 30 pounds to lose. I have lost 7 pounds in the last 3 weeks. I have lost as much as 50, so I know I can do it. I just pray to keep it off.

I also spend a fortune on plastic surgery and dermatological remedies: big lips, dyed eyelashes, botox, liposuction for the neck, eyelid lift. Restylane undereyes. Hey, I look fabulous, but sort of fat. I hate it.

It sucks, but I can't let go of having men's eyes follow me. Shallow, no? I'm really very bright. But I've got to do this. And I'd vomit or starve to make it happen. I'm flirting with bulimia again, I don't binge, but too much of a meal and I'm puking in the john posthaste. I just want to look 30 again. How fucking pathetic. What are these men going to give me -- a cash award? But ugly fat women are invisible. I know that from when I weighed 195.

Sorry to send you such a non-feminist letter, but this is anonymous and I don't have to be a hero. When I see magazine models, I hate myself. That's the reality. I am bright, creative (award-winning writer, poet), beautiful fat or thin, a loving friend. But until I am happy with my weight, I am worthless. Sorry.

48.
I Have Anorexia And Bulimia I stick my two fingers down my throat and I throw up . I'm a anorexic too youre not the only one.

49.
It's hard be inactive in Denver. This city (and much of the state, really) is an exercise mecca, with people bicycling and jogging on nearly every street and sidewalk. Men and women alike rock-climb in Boulder Canyon, whitewater raft through the Royal Gorge, hike fourteeners (mountains that reach 14,000 feet elevation), ski the backcountry of Vail, and mountain bike after work. You don't own a tent? You considered wearing jeans for a hike? Your so-called ski jacket isn't waterproof? You don't have a season pass to Copper Mountain? You've never ridden a road bike?

I love that women are just as active as men here; in the southern U.S. where I was raised, it seems that there is still a large divide between the sexes in terms of who mountain bikes, who lifts weights, and who plays on a competitive sports team. But along with acceptance, there comes expectation.

Recently, my brother announced a sudden observation, "You are the least athletic of all your friends." This was said in front of my friends while eating out at a restaurant.

It's true. While I've succumbed to some of the pressures--I bought a bicycle, I go on occasional hikes, and go through phases where I work out or take dance or kickboxing classes--but I'm happily lethargic at times, too. I will never, never, never find myself mountain biking down a rocky, stump-ridden trail with sharp switchbacks. Or skiing anything except a Green trail (the easiest slopes, short of the bunny slopes).

My boyfriend's friends (males and females), though they don't say it, think I'm a real wimp. They occasionally encourage me to join in their extreme sports, but already know my answer.

Growing up in the South, I took dance lessons for 15 years. I considered myself in shape, more than most. Here, I'm a pussy. I don't condone the word, but it's one I hear a lot to describe people like me don't regularly exercise.

I'm 5'5", 140 lbs. Just a little overweight, and not near as toned as I used to be. In Denver, people talk about it, notice it immediately when they first size you up. In the South, women could be softer, curvier, and be accepted. Not here. Here, I need to play just as hard as men to be accepted by either gender.

50.
The most interesting experience I've had in my lifelong struggle with body image was when I first realized less than a year ago (I'm 23) that I don't need to spend time hating my body. It doesn't look like I want it to, but it never has, and hating it has never helped anything. A lot of people have the feeling that berating themselves is a necessary punishment for bad behavior, and I am often one of those people.

However, when I finally decided to get serious about my depression, which was very linked to my body issues, it took arguing with others to finally get me to believe that hating my body really is a waste of time. I've known the party line forever, that we should love our bodies, etc. Everyone has heard it, and most people say it without meaning it. I came across a positive body image discussion board on ivillage, and was really shocked to find that it was full of overweight women discussing their diets and how x y and z were all they needed to do to finally get that body. I posted, saying that the board was meant to be a place where women could have shelter from the pressure to diet, and what would happen if they didn't lose any weight?

The reaction was very angry. People said that if they weighed what I did, they'd have a heart attack at thirty and leave their children motherless. My BMI is within or near the normal range, firstly. Secondly, I had to point out that weight paranoia is also easily passed on (I picked up my problems from my parents), and that it just might be worse for their children's health (mental or otherwise) than being 5 or 10 pounds overweight.

It's easy to take comfort in hating your body, when you think that with just a little hard work, you could get what you want. It's a lot easier than facing up to the fact that you've been wasting your time and energy on something that only hurts themselves - who wants to admit they've been wrong all this time, AND that they're fat? When I hadn't combed over the damage my self-hatred was doing, and compared it to the damage 5 or 10 lbs of fat on my belly would do to my physical health, it was easy to just err on the side of being almost there, of being almost the gorgeous person I wanted to be. Conversing with these women who had such a ridiculous reaction to the idea of not losing weight made me actually consider the logical and emotional steps it takes to reject the weight-loss lifestyle.

I'm a healthy person. I exercise, I eat my fruits and vegetables, and I see a doctor regularly. I'm doing everything right, and it's really all I can manage while staying on the sane side of things. I have relapses, but I do feel I've made an important change in my thinking.

51.
Self portrait:

[Laughing.] [Smiling.] Walking alone, breathing in deeply the smell of the rain. Beautiful. Thoughtful, considerate. Serious. In love. In love with the world, in love with love. Hurt. Heard. Silly. Succulent. Childish. Wise woman. Blessed. Always observing, always thinking and feeling, always dreaming. Remembers every dream, whether from being awake or asleep. [Eyes open.] Comfortable into the late hours. Powerful. Quiet voice, loud voice [mouth open.]

Doesn't have all the answers.

Doesn't care.

52.
I am a woman. I live physically in a female body. I have breasts and a vagina (but I don't like to call it that, it sounds so cold). I didn't ask to be a woman, it just happened that way.

My voice can and will be loud. I have the ability to sing in key, that is to say, I am not tone-deaf. My eyes are brown, a deep dark brown which melts into my black pupils. My eyes are a mirror image of my dad's. My nose is big and oddly shaped - true, it looks better to me from the front, and I still shy away from profile pictures (working on that). I have full cheeks which are rosy. My lips are not thin and not thick, they are full and pretty, in my opinion (you'd maybe enjoy a kiss from me). I have crooked teeth, a result of not having braces. One tooth sticks out in a peculiar manner and is a source of great frustration and self-consciousness (working on that too).

My neck is womanly and often dons a hemp necklace, handmade by me. My body is soft and supple, large breasts, expansive hips and matching rear, thick legs (can you imagine, once I told him I had ugly horse legs. He didn't think so.) I used to hate it. My body. I used to absolutely loathe it. I'm learning how to love it. I love some of it already. I favor jeans and tshirts and sweaters, flat sandals or sneakers. I rarely wear dresses. I walk and sit and stand, I am an active part of the world. I hurt and love and pray and hope - I hope beyond hope. I sit in the sunshine and sigh relief. I sit and watch the rain and smile.

53.
I imagine my future partner, and wonder...what his name is, what his scent is like, how his hand will feel in mine. I imagine nights of cuddling and soft conversation, of tender smiles and belly laughs, of murmured affection. I imagine his head resting against my shoulder, his fingers trailing my skin, his eyes lit with life. I think about the first time I'll meet him - will I know then what the future will hold? Will he? Will I somehow feel it in my heart? Will I pursue him or will he pursue me? I wonder what we'll have in common and what blessings our differences will bring. I wonder what we'll learn together, and what our happiness and pains from the past will have to say. I wonder what conflict will arise at times. I wonder how he'll kiss, and what he will like when we're intimate. I wonder what his passions will be and what things he can't stand. I wonder when we'll cry together or have to say goodbye for short or long periods of time, depending on situations. I wonder what his family will be like - will they love me? will they be similar to mine? I wonder what he will think of my own family. I wonder what his friends will be like, and which of them will become my good friends. I wonder what he dreams of. I wonder what he wonders about. I wonder if he thinks about me, too.

54.
It was photographs that did me in. I could delude myself enough until I saw my own printed image and immediately the panic rose in my throat - I was so fat and ugly, I could hardly believe it.

I was hard on myself all the time, even as a child. I would never be okay in my own eyes. In the beginning I didn't understand how I was different from any other girls, until, of course, the other kids pointed it out. I was FAT. I had to figure out how FAT I was compared to everyone else. It was elementary school. "Kids can be cruel." "Boys will be boys." I learned early on that I'd never be accepted. That message was received loud and clear.

My grandmother once compared me to a female cousin my own age. She said to me, "you are so much bigger than her. Why?" Shame flooded to my heart and my face and I wanted to hide my enormous body. Swimsuit? I was wearing one at the time. I still loved to swim. Underwater, it didn't matter what I looked like. Eleven years old was probably the last time I wore a swimsuit until my nineteenth year, when a boyfriend pursuaded me to get into his hot tub. I felt like I was eleven again, but I did it.

Terrifying.

Sick part is, I was never that fat in the first place. I look back on that time and think, "wow, girl, you got shit on for no reason. You were beautiful. You were perfect the way you were. I promise."

Grade seven hit me over the head with cold hard fact: boys loved thin "hot" girls with long straight hair and perfect makeup and cool friends. I remember watching a girl named Chanel start to date the coolest guy in my class, a guy I had a crush on. At the school dance they would make out in the hallway, and dance to all the slow songs, and oh so badly I wanted his hands on my hips, so badly I wanted to sway awkwardly to the music with a boy like that holding onto me.

I did learn that "cool" was a phase that ebbed and flowed and that even the cool girls had their days of rejection. Chanel was labeled within months. She shrunk away into isolation. By the end of the year she'd moved away.

High school next; it meandered along. The years were like molasses. Guys of all types surrounded me, but not one of them wanted me in the way I wanted them. Meaningless kisses and groping and feeling more empty than before. Funny how that works. I hated my body more than ever. I sized up my own imperfections as a daily ritual.

Oh God, the night of that party. Can you believe it? There he was. Staying for the night, even. I hinted that he could go to the bed I'd claimed, that if he needed to sleep I'd be willing to share. I simply wanted him. I wanted to touch him and feel him touch me. I wanted to forget my self hatred. He'd been flirting, cuddling up to me every so often. Butterflies awoke in my stomach. I wanted to be bold.

I remember him putting his arm around me in bed and feeling so warm under the blanket. Our breathing slowed, he gasped softly, and we both turned our heads and waited to make sure the drunk guy in the next bed was indeed passed out, as well as his date asleep on the floor.

I was good at it. I could tell. His breath caught in his throat; he was trying to be quiet. I tried to kiss him but he wouldn't turn his head to encourage me. I pretended not to notice. I stopped him from touching me, oddly enough. My self-consciousness was too loud for that.

We were still after that. He left the bed to go find her. They left together the next morning.

Can you believe it?

I couldn't stand the smell of guy's cologne for months after that. It was too much to take. My heart was breaking.

But high school didn't last forever. I honestly thought it would. It ended and then something was starting to break apart from me....pieces of my shell were starting to splinter and fall. Glimpses of my own beauty finding their way in, surprising me. What could this mean?

Finally embracing it: I am beautiful. A revelation that took time to uncover. Suddenly becoming excited about being a woman, about being curvy and soft and sexy.

I live in a body that does not fit society's standards, and I'm so glad. I live on my own terms. My so-called imperfections are the things that make me unique from every other woman. No one else has my smile. No one else has my hands. No one else will get to have me unless I say so. I deserve respect and finally found self-respect. I surround myself with people who inspire me and encourage me.

Everything looks so different now. It took time, but I got here. It wasn't easy, but I got here. It doesn't stop, you know, it's a process. I found out: I really like growing.

55.
I cannot tell you how many times I've been told "you'd be pretty if you just lost weight". I have been fat since early childhood (I remember being on a diet before I entered first grade). That was one of the more "positive" remarks, as my parents termed them, made about my physical appearance.

What this told me, or at least what I took from it, was:
1. You are not pretty now.
2. Weight is the first and foremost element of beauty.
3. Repeated comments meant beauty was important.
4. Since I had been fat ever since I could remember, I had no hope of being not-fat and so had no hope of ever being pretty.

I felt a failure and no amount of struggle (starving myself, exercising obsessively, taking speed - speed given to me by doctors, by the way) seemed to make a lasting difference. Without extreme measures I was fat, and because I could not keep up these extremes for very long, my weight fluctuated but always with a steady curve upward. Not only had I failed physically but morally as well. If I was a GOOD GIRL, I would have been able to keep up the extremes forever.

As time went along and I did not lose weight ("be pretty"), the comments became less "positive". I will never forget the day that my father said to me "You are as sexy as a bag of dirty laundry". I was 14 years old and I think I was about a size 16.

The last time I saw my father he finally admitted what I had known all along. These are his exact words: "I wanted a daughter who had the body of a Playboy Bunny and the mind of Stephen Hawking. I got neither."

I had dieted myself up to my current size, which is a 26.

Though I had felt his distaste for many years, it did not hurt any less to hear it finally spoken.

That was when I decided that my life was much more pleasant without my family. I have not seen or spoken to them for almost ten years.

Sometimes I think "if only I had been thin, they would have loved me". That's in moments of despair. I don't think my weight was the only reason I was rejected but I also will not say it was an inconsequential factor.

I've been fired for being fat, I've lost out on job opportunities for the same reason; I've been mocked by strangers, lectured by waitresses in restaurants when I dared order something other than a salad, incurred the wrath of doctors. But you know, none of that is as bad as knowing the fat on my body was more important to my parents than my heart or my soul.

On a truly positive note, I have been married to a man for almost 17 years who has never EVER said anything negative about my weight. Though sometimes I marvel at the very idea, he seems to love me no matter if I lose ten pounds or gain ten pounds or stay the same. The only time he has ever crossed swords with me over the weight issue was when, in one of those moments of despair I mentioned, I wondered aloud if I should have Weight Loss Surgery (WLS). He was adamant that I not do so. He told me he didn't care if I lost weight some other way, but he could not risk losing me to unnecessary surgery.

So there are people in the world who can see past fat. Or maybe he just doesn't _see_ it at all.

I think I am lucky.

Best regards to you.

56.
You hear a lot of stories about women whose mothers or families are really awful to them when they're growing up fat. I had thought that my mother hadn't been one of those monsters, and that I'd really been spared that kind of talk. But I think what really happened is that I'd blocked out most of the memories. When I gave it some thought, by the time I hit highschool, my mother was pretty awful about my weight. She bought clothes a few sizes too small, and made me wear girdles. She brought me to Weight Watchers at 15, and dieted constantly herself. I remember a screaming fit she threw when we were shopping, and I had to wear XL - she shouted "You HAVE to exercise, you HAVE to!" It was pretty awful. Not that it couldn't be worse, but it was awful.

When I went to college - a women's college - I didn't do anything about Beauty. I didn't cut my hair, I gained weight - most of the time, I didn't care about my appearance. I look at old pictures of myself, and I look a bit frumpy, but I also look really happy.

I didn't diet again until I was a junior in College. My mother begged me to, and I was tired of none of my clothes fitting, so I gave it a shot. I also decided then that I'd like to get married some day and no one would ever love me if I was fat. So, anyway, I dieted with gusto like no other. I dropped tons of weight in about seven months. I felt sure that I would be the one who succeeded, unlike everyone else. I exercised constantly. I joke about it now: "Eat nothing but sugar free jell-o for six months and YOU TOO can lose weight [temporarily]."

And then I started getting attention from men, and I barely knew what to do. Well, I had a lot of sex, that's what I did. I loved being thin, but I think it made me insane. In my journal entries from that time, I say that I feel raw, brittle, and fragile. I was a mess. I started drinking heavily. I started binge eating.

It's taken me a long time to recover from that year. It was about three years ago, and I still don't think I'm completely over it. I gave up dieting and I also gave up exercising. Now, exercise is something that does make me feel better, but I get into a mindset where I feel really guilty if I skip it one day, and that makes me pretty miserable too. I just want to take it easy with myself, because I know I can pick it up again when I'm ready.

I know it probably seems silly, but for me, buying colorful clothes that fit me properly makes me feel a lot better. I dress as stylishly as I can afford, or can manage in plus sizes, and I get great haircuts. I feel like people need to dress extravagantly and with a sense of humor, but it's hard to do. I also know I can attract good men at this size, and there are some who prefer it. And doing something with the sole purpose of attracting men seems like a silly reason to do anything, anyway. I feel like I'm better at taking things in stride than I used to be.

There are days when I catch a glimpse of myself and I go "Ugh, I am so big." And there are days when I see me and I think "I am the hotness and I totally bring it." And that's not a forced, "you go girl" kinda reaction - I really do think I look good somedays. It comes and it goes. I spend a lot of time naked in front of the mirror. I just look, well, like myself.

I just want a good life, and I don't want to put things on hold because I'm fat, which I used to do. And part of a good life is good food. I've slowly stopped buying low-fat versions of things. I ate low-fat swiss for a year, and the thought if it makes me gag. I suspect I still overeat some, and I have a habit of stocking my pantry for the apocalypse.

Sometimes I am worried that people won't hire me because of my weight. But I recently got a job with an upperclass woman who seems to be obsessed with thinness herself, but she is really good to me. She knows I'm a hard worker. I think I'd freak out if she made my weight an issue. The other day in her office, I broke a chair that I was sitting on. Well, the chair broke. I think it was because of loose joints, and she was really worried about me and I didn't detect a bit of snideness about it. It was just a crappy chair. I think there are men out there who no one considers fat who weigh just as much as I do, and no one would say anything if they broke a chair. I'm probably a little paranoid about my weight.

57.
I recently put on a large amount of weight -- while I've always had to watch myself -- I've never really been heavy. I never thought it would affect me so much -- but people really do treat you different. The biggest change is men -- while I am happily married and don't seek the attention of men -- I still notice that they don't look at me and react the same as they used to. I've always been pretty and have never had a lack of male attention -- that is -- until now. I used to hear that I had beautiful eyes or a wonderful smile -- I've gained weight -- but I still have nice teeth and big green eyes -- why doesn't anyone notice now? What's funny is that what used to strike me as annoying and sometimes borderline rude attention -- I know miss tremendously and have found that it has affected my self-esteem. Why is it that we allow others to define our self-image and decide whether or not we are beautiful? I'm still the same person -- in fact, I think I'm a better person -- not obsessing so much about my waistline -- I still am well groomed and well-dressed but I don't obsess over every little thing I eat -- I'm much more fun and loads more relaxed -- it's ironic -- you would think I would be more well-liked now -- but it just isn't true!

58.
As a younger girl, I was very self-concious about my body. I was not overweight, I was active and healthy. But because I was a naturally larger girl, I was constantly being encouraged to lose weight or being told I was so pretty, but if I "would just lose a few pounds," I'd be gorgeous. My confidence in my body was zero. Now, I am overweight, and struggling to lose weight for my health, and my body image is much more positive than it was when I was at my supposed "ideal" weight. When I got away from the negative influences I started feeling better about myself and the positive aspects of my body. I see myself as I really am, not how other people tell me I am. I don't love my body, and I struggle with the challenges it presents me with, but I don't hate myself.

59.
I'm a 33 year old female. I have a BA in Classics and History and my JD. I chose not to work as an attorney after being particularly dissatisfied with my law school experience. I work as an accountant handling grant administration at a university in the Southeast. I live in Florida.

I'm surrounded by 18-22 year old women who think they are fat at 102lbs. It is extremely difficult to be heavy, much less fat, in the eternally youthful and thin environment. It is also, living in Florida, difficult to see people on the beaches and not constantly be reminded of what your body looks like.

I used to be thinner. I was never thin. I played sports as a child and was active. My mother ate salads and wore pants because she was embarassed of how her legs looked, and while not heavy, her legs have many spider veins, but as a child, i thought she covered them because she was embarassed about how much she weighed.

I teach belly dance. It's amazing how I can tell people to get in touch with their bodies and be fascinated by the things their body can do and feel so terrible about my own. I also wonder how I can see people who are "fat" and think how beautiful they are and still can't see that in my own reflection.

Maybe this all started the day I was eating ice cream and my father called me a glutton. Maybe it came from dating someone who was six foot two and weighed less than I did at five feet tall. He thought I was fat and reminded me of it constantly. After we stopped dating he moved on and married, and she contacted me because she was anorexic and dealing with issues he also inflicted on her about body image.

I have beautiful soul brown eyes...they are darker than any of the brown eyes in my family. I have beautiful chestnut colored hair. I have a spatter of freckles on my nose. My lips are full and my teeth white and straight. I have a beautiful hour glass figure. When I feel positive about myself, I am beautiful and other people notice. But I now cover my legs and arms because they are fat. I'm lucky, I'm considered obese yet I have very little cellulite on my body. My skin is a lovely color of ivory, I tan to a beautiful color of caramel. My husband thinks I'm beautiful....but it's hard to believe.

I want to look like the girls on TV and in magazines. I want to wear straight jeans (nevermind that I've never been able to wear straight jeans because I'm hour glass shaped) with heels and little tank shirts that show a flat tan stomach. I want to be the girl that people turn their heads and look at, and not because I can flutter my abs when dancing...they are still fat girl abs. I had two men come up to me after a show, at my heaviest, where I wore this beautiful spanish red dress. One was about 16 and he said "You are such a beautiful dancer....you have such passion and grace." The other was about my age and said "All I have to say is WOW." Those things mean so little when you recall incidents of being moo-ed at while jogging (much thinner mind you).

I know this rambles and I'm sorry...I don't know what you want. I'm 5 foot tall and weigh 200 pounds. I'm classified as morbidly obese. I can't put food into my mouth without wondering what I'm doing to my body or wondering if other people aren't watching what I eat in horror. I can't go out to a club without knowing that other people aren't appalled by how fat I am. I can't wear normal fashions and somehow clothes for plus sized women all look like clothes my granmother would wear. I don't eat any differently than other people I know. I teach dance classes and am relatively active. I wonder how much more I would have to do to be thin and wonder if it isn't worth it....I have a bulimic cousin and had a friend who died when she was 21 (I was much younger) from heart failure due to bulimia. I wish the media would see the beauty in normal people rather than the two percent who clothes hang off perfectly. I remember the first time I saw Schindler's list....they show the people naked in the concentration camps...and everyone is naked. I remember seeing the normal bodies, the normal cellulite and thinking how progressive it was for showing everyone's bodies. And thinking how beautiful they all looked. I remember seeing the model Emme in People's sexiest people list...and she was photographed like a Rubens painting....normal heavier people who are beautiful. But yet, Roeper wants to say the Dove girls are chunky and not part of his fantasy. It's sad how the media has twisted everyone's minds to what is and is not beautiful.

60.
I am 28 years old, white, Jewish (by birth if not practice), fat, and living in Los Angeles. I came out here for work in the film industry, but that didn't work out, so now I am a bookkeeper for a small auction firm.

When I moved to Los Angeles, 4 1/2 years ago, I weighed 87 pounds. My hair was thinning, my body was frail. I was cold all the time, and I snapped at everyone. I had gotten close to suicide twice.

I've been fat my whole life. I am the youngest of four children, and all but one of us tends towards fat, as did my parents. While I love my parents, they were always prejudiced against fat people. Most people are, I think. Being fat becomes the absolute worst thing that can happen to a person in this mindset, and as a result, I was always on a diet. I know that my parents really wanted a cute, tiny little princess of a daughter. And I was fat, which could never be cute.

My dad liked control, especially at the dinner table. If we were having pasta, and you wanted a piece of bread, you had to ask my dad to cut it for you. If we were having Chinese food, you had to ask him to ladle some onto your plate. And ice cream was the worst. Because I was the youngest, I always got less than everyone else. My dad had this mentality that, no matter what, he got the most, then my mom, then all my brothers, then me. How much food you got was in direct proportion to your age and rank.

Another salient characteristic of my dad was that he never told me he was proud of me, save for when I lost weight. Good grades were a given in my family, and received no praise. When I lost weight, though, I was suddenly a good kid.

My mom was fat for my whole life. I know that she was constantly on diets as a child and young adult. After she gave birth to my oldest brother, my father made a comment about how she was starting to look like my grandmother from behind. My mother promptly became anorexic, and dropped below 95. For as long as I can remember though, she had been fat. After her hysterectomy following my birth, she gained weight, much to my father's dismay.

At one point in my childhood, my mother did something particularly painful. One day, she kept me in her bedroom, and hounded me to weigh myself in front of her, so she could see. I refused. I must have been about 10 or 11 years old. She finally wore me down by saying "You go, and then I'll weigh myself and you can see what I weigh." I did it, and then she refused to weigh herself. I don't remember if I cried, but I know I felt as betrayed as I've ever felt in my life. It's not that I wanted to know what she weighed; it had honestly never crossed my mind. But, I think that that moment marked the beginning of true shame regarding my weight.

An interesting point is that, as a child, I completely ignored all bodily signals, as I'm sure many fat people desperate to lose weight do, much to their detriment. When I was hungry, I would purposely not eat, thinking that that was the right thing to do. To a fat kid trying to lose weight, hunger=good. It must mean that you're losing weight, right? Except that leads to a feeling of deprivation, of wondering why everyone else gets to eat without having to worry, and what's so wrong with me, anyway?...I'm so disgusting, I hate myself...I'll just bring this bag of cookies up to my room and eat them in private. Now, I'm not saying that if I hadn't done that, I would be thin, because I think that I am just naturally fat, but it did contribute to my depression and lack of self-esteem a a child.

So, I was fat all through high school and college, going on various diets. All through this period, I spent every moment fantasizing about what my life would be like when I lost weight. I would have a boyfriend, and tons of friends. I wouldn't think I was ugly anymore.

When I got to film school, I was still fat. Towards the end of my time there, I got involved with a guy, and lost my virginity. I became enamored of him, although he really wasn't worth my time. I don't want to say that it was his fault that I became anorexic, because it really wasn't. It was a lifetime of believing that I just had to lose weight to get someone really interested. This guy and I were friends. He liked me for me, and so I believed that all I had to do was lose weight, so that he wouldn't be ashamed to make our relationship public. The culmination of a lifetime of believing that being thin is the most important thing in the world, combined with the final straw of having a man to pin my hopes on, plus the stress of graduating graduate school and being a little lost, sent me into a tailspin. I stopped eating, and began exercising compulsively. Since everyone is trained to believe that thin is the only path to beauty, I was inundated with compliments. Of course, the guy that I was doing this to win was unmoved. Because of the discomfort of our relationship (I had told him that I loved him) we hadn't spoken in months. When we finally did, he told me that he was worried about me, and that he had liked me as I was.

Still, I kept losing weight. I graduated, and moved away from the guy. I mourned him for way too long. But, I know that it was an image of love that I wanted, not him. Once I got down to 110 pounds, I tried to tell my mother that I thought I had a problem. She asked me how much I weighed, and I told her, unashamed for once, because I knew that it was probably low enough for her to be proud. Instead, she guffawed. "That's nothing," she said. "I used to weigh 90. I wouldn't eat all week, and then I would reward myself with a piece of hamburger meat this big." She held her thumb and forefinger together, in a bizarre approximation of the "OK" sign. I was stunned. Here I was confessing a sickness, and apparently, I still wasn't thin enough to merit attention.

So, I kept losing weight. I moved to NJ, to live with my brother while I commuted to a film job in NY. I became extremely austere at this point. I ate only dinner, (then eventually dinner and breakfast) and ran six miles a day. The food I ate was only fruit, vegetables and beans, and I would estimate that it was a diet of around 500-600 calories a day. I went to bed at 9pm in order to wake up early enough to run four miles. Then when I got home at night, I would run two more. I refused to watch TV. I read only classical novels and listened only to NPR. I was a complete bitch to my brother. I hated for anyone to see me eat, and would become irrationally angry if my brother (a doctor, whose hours of work varied) came and joined me for breakfast in the mornings.

One morning, I was on the treadmill, and something happened. I had helped out with chores the day before, and cleaned the basement, where the treadmill was located. I had mopped the floor. That next morning, I was running on it, and the water must've gotten into the motor, because it shorted out, and jumped up to top speed instantly. I fell, and was rolled between the end of the treadmill and the brick wall it was up against. I was shaken, and had open burns all along my right side. What did I do? I slapped some bandages on myself and finished my run outside. I simply could not skip exercise. It was unthinkable.

My brother and sister-in-law were understandably worried, and talked me into therapy and seeing a nutritionist. It's funny to me now, because my nutritionist had to walk a fine line. She would make suggestions, like, "how about you add an orange to your diet, mid-day?" And I would say, "Will I gain weight?" Then she would have to tapdance between telling me that I would, while trying to make me see that I NEEDED to gain weight. But, I couldn't gain weight. I was terrified of it. People always ask me: "Didn't you know how thin you were, or did you think you were still fat?" Actually, I knew that I was no longer fat. But, I was so terrified of gaining weight, that I continued with the restictive behaviors, and kept losing weight. Plus, I had lost so much weight so quickly, that my body had a lot of extra skin. I didn't have a flat stomach, no matter how many crunches I did at night. Now, I know that a flat stomach simply isn't possible for many people, but at the time, I told myself that someday, I would be toned there, if I kept up the "good work."

Anorexia is, above all, a mental sickness. I reached the point where I honestly thought that I was a worthless sack of shit if I didn't do "as well" as I had done the day before. It truly is a downward spiral, where you have to one-up yourself constantly. The thinking that I engaged in was just as disordered as my actual eating. They were interconnected, one depending on the other. I became a hermit, as I felt that I couldn't go out and do anything; it's incredible how many of our interactions with other people revolve around food.

My job in NY ended, and while I wouldn't have had a problem finding another one, I decided to move to California. I was depressed, for obvious reasons, and I guess I thought that a change of location might help things.

People who know me, and know my past, have asked me what happened when I got to California, to make me break free of anorexia. I think it had something to do with a simple exchange with my father. My parents helped me move across country, and I think that living with me for that short amount of time, and seeing my disfunction first hand, may have scared them a little. I cried after we went to a buffet restaurant (the only kind my family would frequent) and actually ate a little piece of cake. After doing so, I made myself run around the unfamiliar highways of middle-America until I threw it up. My father took me aside, and told me that he had liked the way I looked when I graduated film school. "Just gain 20 pounds, then stop, and you'll be good," he told me. Something inside me broke. My father, who had battled weight problems his whole life, thought that I would look good at one weight, and one weight only. Just gain 20 pounds, and stop. Might as well ask a car heading for a brick wall to stop, just one inch short of impact. That's the thing with life-long dieters: sometimes, they forget how difficult it is to control weight with an iron hand, because they are still locked into the hope that it's possible.

Once I got to California, I moved in with another brother until I could find a steady paycheck. I began reading books by Geneen Roth and the Overcoming Overeating contingent. Of course, I didn't overeat, but I was looking for answers somewhere. These books tend toward an approach of giving up all dieting in the attempt to retrain your natural hunger cues, and losing weight as a result of giving up disordered eating patterns. I read the books over and over again, until I had to nerve to try it. Now, I do not agree with these books. First of all, I doubt this approach will work for any but a very few. Also, I don't agree with a plan to give up dieting that still has the ultimate goal of losing weight to fit into an ideal.

But, I began eating, and it was as if a dam broke. I went with the book whole hog. I ate everything I had denied myself for 2 1/2 years. I was working freelance as a sound designer at the time, and kept strange hours. Sometimes, I would come home at 2 am. I relished these times, because I could gorge myself in private. I ate brownies and ice cream, Nutella, cookies, chocolate...anything sweet I could. And I ate with abandon. I gained 30 pounds in a month. Then, I kept gaining and gaining. I eventually plateaued at around 160, and kept that weight for around a year.

At that time, I began a relationship with another film school friend, except we were now both in LA. We were "friends with benefits," and although I wanted more, I contented myself with the fact that he wasn't hiding our relationship. But, this new guy, although still a friend, has strong dieting tendencies. He begins with self-hatred and ends with starvation, just as I used to. I always try to talk him down, away from his parent-diagnosed "soup diet" and try to make him see that he is wonderful the way he is.

Around this time, I began to slowly become militantly anti-diet. I am currently still "in the closet" with my fat. By this I mean that it is obvious to all who see me that I am fat, (since ending things with this new guy, and him moving to Miami, I have gained more weight, and I am currently at 210) but I keep my Fat Pride hidden to all but women I am close to. It is still hard to "come out" as a Prideful Fat Person to men, as I, like most women, have been trained from an early age to base my self-esteem on what men think of me.

My recent weight gain is something that I am cautiously proud of, as it didn't result from bingeing, and it wasn't accompanied by hand-wringing. It is simply this: I am fat. Some people just are. I hope for a day when it is a characteristic like brown hair or height. I consider myself one of the lucky ones, to have stumbled upon an entire library of Fat Revoution books. I have busied myself reading "Fat!So?" by Marilyn Wann and "The Obesity Myth" by Paul Campos as well as a host of others. I go to the doctor now with a prepared list of quotes to counteract any prejudice regarding my health (which is very well, thank you). I exercise when I feel like it, because it is fun. I have been hit on more as a fattie than I ever was thin.

My anorexia was a gift, I think. I spent my whole life praying for thinness, fantasizing about how incredible life would be as a size 4. And I did it. I got down to a point where regular clothes wouldn't fit me, and I had to shop in boys' and girls' sections. And I was never more miserable. I know, firsthand, without a doubt, that having everything you thought you wanted doesn't make life perfect. I have knowledge that I wish I could pass on to every little fat girl out there, heading down a path to self-hatred, and body image issues. There's just so much more to us than our weight. It is such a small, insignificant aspect, or it should be.

Things are much better now. Not perfect; I still have self-esteem issues. I still, in very weak moments, almost reflexively imagine a future time in which I am thin. But, after a lifetime of doing that, it's hard to just stop. Just as, once I was thin, it was hard to imagine gaining weight. When you spend 20+ years being told to lose weight, and then have people tell you you need to gain weight, you can either give in, or tell everyone to fuck off and just be. I have a boyfriend, but he is married. I don't know why I stay with him, except that I guess it's still hard to believe that there will ever be anyone else. I always think that the guy I'm with is my last chance. So, I still have some things to work on, but I have embraced fat pride, and I look forward to trying to watching our societal prejudices against fat change with time.

61.
I am 26 Latina. I work as a waitress and go to school (I am transfering to Long Beach State as a Junior). My build is 155 lb, 5'5 approx. Brown hair, Brown eyes and very light skin (people always comment on how white I am, especially when they find out I'm latina). I never thought of myself as chunky (until someone on the radio did), but always thought I could stand to drop 20 pounds or so. As far as relationship go... I have had 1 long term boyfriend and I have kind of dated so to speak. I am not a drinker but many times I feel I need to be drunk to be intimate.

61.
I live in Sydney, Australia. I'm 54, twice divorced woman working in the human resources area. I've grown bigger over time, and am now size 20 (Australian sizing, which is about an 18 in USA) I've always had problems with body image. The size I am now is the size I always thought I was even when I was a 10! I feel angry with myself for not having had better body image and enjoying the shape I was - it's stopped me from so much.

I'm crying as I write this because I've had another potential relationship bust up because of body image issues. Too fat for him. It's happened quite a few times in the recent past and I'm becoming more and more paranoid to the point that I'm quitting the dating scene. Unfortunately I know this paranoia colours my attitude and behaviour and I'm coming to realise that I really need to find a therapist to help me with it. If the fairy godmother waved a magic wand over me and made me slim, I think I would still have issues. As far as relationships are concerned I've got two strikes against me: age and weight.

I hold a great deal of anger at the unfairness of being judged by your shape; at the way it's ok to mock and jeer at big people; at the pressure we are put under by health care professionals to lose weight and continually being given diets and food advice; at the poor health care we do receive, such as doctors ignoring symptoms and blaming everything on weight; and at being on a diet since I was 13 and look where it got me!

I can't think of anything positive about my image. Apparently I've got a pretty face (with always that "but if only she'd lose weight" undertone attached to compliments).

My definition of beauty? A healthy, well-toned body. With a radiance within that shows outside. A goodness of spirit.

Is there a solution? Not a realistic one - that humans suddenly evovle into caring people who look at the person within and don't judge. Can we apply the same education and legislative campaign to outlawing fat discrimination as we apply to race discrimination? That could change overt discrimination and unfairness.

Good luck with your project. If I knew how to improve my self-image I'd be a much happier woman.

Christine

Sydney, Australia 6 August 2005

62.
my entire life, i was the fat kid, the girl all the guys made fun of, i dreaded school and now that im older, i dread almost any social events. no matter how pretty the face and the attitude, people just cant get over the size. i was turned down for jobs because of my size, im treated differently when im out shopping expecially for cloths. it always feels like everyone is looking at me with a non approving look. ive tried to diet and exersize, but nothing worked, now i have really low self esteem and have become very depressed. im hoping to find work in the plus size modeling and acting industry if i can not make it in the music industry, but me being over weight doesnt help with the music industry at all. thanks to people like brittany spears, people like me arent even considered.i guess i define beauty as ....thin....slender...sexy..... and i cant see any of that when i look at myself.

63.
I would like to share the struggle I've had with my insurance company. It truly illustrates how the health community pushes thinness as opposed to wellness. I am a twenty-year-old college student who has been fat all her life, particulary carrying a lot of my weight in my chest. My symptoms due to heavy breasts have been documented for years. Last year I began the process of applying to my insurance agency for a breast reduction. I went to see a plastic surgeon, who made note of my symptoms and breast size. My height and weight were also noted, with no comment made from the doctor or the nurse. Notes were made about the grooves developing in my shoulders, the rashes under and between my breasts, the near-constant neck- and backache, and more. The doctor said I was an excellent candidate for the surgery, as I was young and would heal well. He also told me the benefits would probably far exceed even what I would expect. The doctor wrote a letter to my insurance company recommending me for the surgery.

Two weeks later, I receive a letter. It stated that, while I did have medical need for the surgery, and would benefit greatly from it, my weight compared to my height (commonly known as the BMI) was too great, and my request was denied. I was told I could not have the surgery that would save me years of pain simply because I did not fit into their prescribed mold. I was told to come back after I'd lost 45 pounds. To me this is just another ridiculous example of weight-based discrimination.

64.
I've been thinking a lot more about my body since getting pregnant. Not just because pregnancy changes the body so much, although that is a factor, certainly. But because, as a plus-size woman (to put it politely) there was so much criticism of me in the first place for "daring" to get pregnant.

Apparently, if the media and society is a guide, I am the first woman over 200 lbs to ever get pregnant. You can't buy maternity clothes for fat women. You must buy larger versions of ordinary "fat lady" clothing - finally, an occasion to wear the shapeless floral muu-muus so many designers think fat ladies prefer!

And don't even get into the whole doctor experience! All you hear when you're fat and pregnant is the negatives. You will develop gestational diabetes. You will develop pre-eclampsia. You will suffer heart palpitations, possibly die. You will probably miscarry because you are so fat. If you do make it to delivery you will never be able to give birth naturally because you will be too fat. Your infant will be oversized and get its shoulders stuck and you'll need an emergency c-section which will have to involve a vertical incision because of your immense fatness, which will immediately rule out a VBAC. But don't worry about having a VBAC anyway since you'll probably die from the anesthesia, since they'll probably have to give you general anesthesia because an epidural won't take in such a fat woman and you'll aspirate your stomach contents - because, after all, what fat lady could stop eating long enough to give birth?

307 at birth. 9 lb 3 oz infant. Natural childbirth all the way, not even an episiotomy. Tell me again that my body is too broken because of being fat to nurture and birth a child!

Now I think about what legacy about body image I want to teach my child. I think now that I owe it to my son to not give him a mother who is obsessed with losing weight to the exclusion of all else. He deserves a mother who will share an ice cream cone with him without fretting about calories. He deserves to get the message that women of all sizes are beautiful. That a woman's body can function just as well at 300 lbs as it can at 120 if it's well-taken care of. That a woman can be attractive at 300 lbs just as well as at 120.

65.
I am a thirty-nine year old customer service representative located in Jamaica Queens. I work for a known fortune 500 company where most of the employees in my location are African American materialistic women. Going to work is like a big fashion show. Fortunate enough for me I AM a full figured model. So as a bigger woman and able to keep up with the latest fashions store bought or designer made I am not one to be recogoned with. I can wear an outfit and by the time the day is over I am being discussed among my co workers prior to the fact it use to bother me why am I such a hot topic. My mother told me its when your being discussed your important. Worry when they don't talk about you.

I consider myself to be a beautiful individual but I think my strongest beauty lies within. I will give anybody anything. I am a caring and considerate person who is always willing to help. I believe that physical beauty can be taken from you at anytime in your life. So you have to have inner beauty. Women tend to use their physical beauty for money, sex, power and other things. I was always curious to know when that is your life works what happens when your eighty years old. I laughed because there are some mature women that have beauty physically ig: Lena Horne, Tina Turner, Eartha Kitt. But at there age their beauty is inside and out.

I was always self conscience about my body because men love me behind closed doors. Society donÌt call for you to have curves and be in a successful relationship. I was always told your pretty but÷÷÷÷. Well Lately since the reign of Beyonce Knowles is cool to have curves but hey Pam Grier was my idol for a long time. I love myself and really donÌt care what anyone think anymore. It took awhile for me to get here but I arrived. And no one will ever make me think less about myself.

66.
I was a big kid--had I been a boy, my body would have been praised as appropriate for a fullback or wrestler (both of which, btw, I turned out being terrific at as a middle age adult taking up sports denied me as a female). At puberty, I gained a lot of weight.

I don't think I would have thought ill of my body had my nuclear family not been so unrelentingly nasty and cruel about it. I was taken to doctors, put on amphetamines before the age of 10, and told hundreds of times that my body was ugly and unacceptable. I heard it far more at home than I did in the schoolyard, where I was liked and respected for being myself.

As an adolescent, I fought the growing attitude among my peers that thin was important and attracting a sexual partner was worth any sacrifice and stayed myself. I didn't always feel good about my body, larger than my peers', but somehow I understood it was mine. I was big and me, period, and if people didn't like it, they could find someone else to talk with.

It was at 19 that I finally internalized the "your body is awful" messages and became an anorexic. My natural dress size is around 20. I kept my size down in the single digits for 14 years through self-starvation. Because I was never under 100 pounds and bone thin, no one suspected anorexia. Yet I still had it. On fat women, anorexia looks like a "normal" size. The diagnosis came later, after the behaviors had mostly ended and my body weight was close to normal-for-me again.

Strangely enough, my worst body image was when I was an anorexic and therefore at my smallest. My "cellulite" seemed magnified, awful beyond description. If I gained from a size 5 to a size 7, I was despondent and refused to leave the house and let people see how "ugly" I was. Body image for me had nothing to do with size. In fact, the more I tried to control my size, the more I succeeded at doing so, the worse my body image got.

It has taken years of therapy, thousand of hours of repeating affirmations, and careful managing of what I allow into my consciousness (no magazines or commercial TV) to first accept and then love my body. I do love it now, and after taking the undergraduate pre-med sequence of anatomy and physiology courses (for fun--I'm odd, I know, in that I LOVE learning), I am in awe of how complex the workings of the organs, the cells. I stop and think about the billions of neurons firing to allow me to type this story and I get wide eyed in amaze. How could I NOT love that body?

Now I only feel regret, a desire to apologize to my body for what I let my mind be brainwashed into doing so much harm against it. I grieve the likely 10 or 15 years I've shaved off my life with starvation and diet drugs. I'm sorry I called myself names. I'm integrated now, and I really don't think of it as "my body" but me. I am my body. My mind is my body. My spirit is my body. It is all me, and I love me--fiercely at times, gently at times, but I do love me. The solution for me (others' mileage will vary on this, of course) was:

-quit trying to change the body Goddess gave me

-healing the emotional issues that helped fuel the anorexia and body hatred

-stop thinking at all about food stuff--nutrition labels/calories/fat grams/etc

-learning to demand feed--eating when hungry, what I'm hungry for, stopping when full

-reading no magazines, watching no TV but PBS, avoiding most movies

-instead, really paying attention to the real, average of size 14, women I see on the streets

-walking away from body-hatred/dieting discussions

-growing older. The less I was in the "prime sexual commodity for men" age range, the less I cared about trying to be that at any cost.

-reading anti-dieting/pro size acceptance material (fat!so? Nothing to Lose, Bountiful Lives, The Obesity Myth, Losing It, Big Fat Lies, etc)

-really paying attention to my glorious fat friends who lead such interesting lives

-for a time, being in an anti-diet support group

-choosing only friends who have more interesting things to talk about than what's imperfect about their or others' bodies

-finding a spiritual path that embraces the Feminine

-living "as if" I live as if I am in a sane world, where people are judged by the content of their characters. It's a pleasant delusion and allows me to experience a fuller life

-engaging fully in those things that we might call "following my bliss" -- the more deep and satisfying a life I live, the less I care to worry about petty stuff, like dress size or wrinkles.

67.
I've never been beautiful. I was a scrawny, short kid with fine, stringy hair and grew into a short, scrawny teenager with glasses and fine, stringy hair. I was disappointed that I was flat-chested. I looked like a boy with long hair. I was discouraged because I didn't have looks or brains or even a good family people could admire. The only thing I had working in my favor was a good imagination and the ability to write. After I graduated high school, I didn't have time to pay attention to such things. I was too busy caring for my mother and siblings and working two jobs. I was still flat-chested, but I didn't care. I started to worry because my mom was anorexic and bulimic and it became more apparent after she became disabled in a car accident. I changed her diapers and wished I could weigh 80 pounds and have a concave stomach.

I was 21 when I filled out. I mean, I really filled out. I went from 115 lbs. to 140 lbs. in a matter of months. I was puzzled because I was eating the diet of the preschoolers I was caring for and expending far more energy than I took in. Pants started not fitting right. My butt was so round that in order to get pants that fit around my hips, I'd have to get a size that left the waist gaping in the back. At least I wasn't quite as flat-chested as before.

My siblings were out of the house and on their own. I cared for our mother and finally went to college. I felt younger than I had in many years. Brains mattered more than looks among the people I was around. I could fake brains. Just spout out some facts about Shakespeare or Chaucer and you could impress most people...except the occasional professor. I wasn't beautiful, but I finally had a degree. People think smart people are beautiful and they think if you have a degree you're smart. It's a delusion, really.

After college I met a man who helped me see what true beauty was. He was beautiful and brilliant. Every time he touched me I felt electricity surge through my body. I felt as if a god were touching and loving me. As I watched his days dwindle into gasping breaths, felt his cells being suffocated by the cancer that ravaged his lungs, I learned what beauty was. Beauty is goodness and life...all the things he taught me to cherish through his example.

After my lover and soulmate died, I continued to explore the things we explored together. I learned that I was indeed a good person otherwise he would never have loved me. Since goodness is beautiful, I knew I had to at least be a little beautiful.

I made friends, laughed, bounced, and found that I had a wealth of wonderful people around me. I learned that beauty comes from the connections one makes with others. Laughter and life and rejoicing is beautiful.

Somehow, I got lost. There were turbulent times. I found myself bingeing until I had gained over fifty pounds in six months. I don't know how to lose that weight. I avoid watching shows that have thin people as their heroines. They don't represent reality and such images only negatively influence how I feel about myself. It is hard to remember one is beautiful when you can't find sexy clothes that fit or even a pair of comfortable jeans. I try to fake it, but sometimes I am consumed by the media's version of beauty, even though more often than not it shows self-centered, unintelligent waifs who couldn't reason their way out of a paper bag. I know what beauty is, but it is hard to attain...and maintain if you want to stay connected to the world.

68.
My skin is pale. Very pale. My family is Northern European through and through, and it shows. I joke that my exposed skin blinds passers-by on a sunny day. I don't (and won't) tan, which means that even in the summer I am pale. I guess because my body is within the "acceptable" range (I'm 5'5" and fit), my skin is what garners comments from strangers and others. I remember in my pre-adolescent days when a boy behind me taunted "Hey Casper, where's your socks end?" Eloquent indeed, but it hurt me. It has stayed with me for the dozen or more years since it happened, and I think about it when my legs are bare. My uncle once suggested I "need to get some sun" when I wore a sun dress on a scorching hot day. My husband, bless him, says he loves my pale skin. A good friend once said it was "aristocratic" (which I believe was intended as a compliment) but I am hesitant to expose my skin, especially my legs. They can be almost blue, especially if I've been sitting or standing for a long time. I am a teacher, and my students comment on it regularly. Not in a mocking way - "You're pale" is most frequent. But it is noticed, and deemed worthy enough to comment upon.

I guess that is what I find the most frustrating about standards of beauty - how very silly they are, the extent to which so many of us know this intellectually, and yet how seriously we take these expectations. I am annoyed with myself for my hesitation in showing my skin because I know intellectually how utterly ridiculous it is to expect white girls to have an even golden glow (leading to skin cancer) year-round. But I am learning to let it go. I mean, who the hell cares that my skin is pale? And yet I pause by the self-tanners in the spring, but maybe for less and less time every year.

69.
I am african american, 22 years old, and a college student. The pressure to be beautiful is always present with me. From the kinkiness of my hair, to the color of my skin, to the numbers on the scale, I have always strived to meet a standard of beauty that is not of my own making. All throughout elementary and middle school, I was picked on for my size. I have never been a thin girl... most of the time I was alot larger than the other girls in my classes. I was one of a few black students that took advanced classes during elementary school, so I compared my self to the blond haired, blue eyed, long tressed white girls in my classes. I attempted to diet in the 4th grade, but it was hard for me. I couldn't stay on a diet for to long because food was always available in my home. When I went to high school, I wore a size 18-20. I stopped dieting, and I began to become more comfortable in my skin. In college, however, I began exercising frequently, developed depression, and dropped about 20 pounds. I left college after only one semester, and I moved in with a friend of mine. During my 2 year "sabbatical" from college, I blew up to 225 pounds, and I was in a size 22. I began smoking, stopped exercising, and developed an all around unhealty lifestyle. In January, 2004, I decided that I was not happy with my weight, and I realized that the world was not happy with it either. Since then, I have dropped 55 pounds, and went from a size 22 to a 12. Still, sometimes I look in the mirror and see a fat girl. My hair is nappy, my hips are wide, and my skin is still as dark as it was in elementary school. With the help of God, I am realizing that this is me, and this is going to be me for the rest of my life. Trying not to subscribe to the standard of beauty portrayed in the media is hard, but I am willing to fight the desire to conform.

70.
I live in the land of Ken and Barbie.

Southern California. The land of the movies, blond bombshells and airbrushed portraits.

I'm fat.

It took me a long time to be able to admit that. To stand up and say, 'yes, I am a fat girl' and be OK with it too. I still have my moments of wild insecurity, and my times when I think that if I only have my esophagus stapled to my asshole, all will be right in my world. Then I wake up.

Beauty comes in all sizes. All shapes. It can be in strength, it can be in image, it can be in personality or love. Beauty knows no boundaries and no scale.

I am a beautiful, educated, successful woman. Desirable, and deserving. I, like most women in america, have to tell myself that everyday, unless of course I am in front of a camera.

I am a fat model. I stand in front of the camera and the lights shining on me with the whirr of the camera and I feel stunning. My self esteem is high for weeks after a shoot, because the camera empowers me, gives me a sense of power and smugness.

They said I'd have to lose weight to be successful in front of the camera. Little did they know.

It hasn't always been this way. As a young woman I felt that no one would love me. NO one would want me. That I was invisable in the dating scene. Sometimes, if someone who doesn't fit my idea of what I think would be attracted to me flirts with me, I am stunned. I flounder and don't know how to react. Then I realize, that I am beautiful and no matter what the media says to me, I am worthy. Or sometimes I studder and am shocked. Thinking that they are only after something illicit. Because who could honestly be attracted to the fat chick? You know what? Normal men are. They are attracted to lush figures, to fullness to my smile and my impossibly green eyes. They are attracted to the full belly laugh and the happy go lucky side of me.

Beauty, I am learning, comes from the inside.

71.
I am a graduate student in engineering; this defines my lifestyle. Most of my waking hours are consumed by research, work that is stimulating and fulfilling, I love what I do; however, it was very different for me as an undergraduate. I was mentally and physically fatigued through most of my 4 years of study. I had little energy for exercise and stress was a constant factor, eating was a Pyrrhic comfort. So I gained not only the Ïfreshmen 15Ó, but additional weight followed my sophomore and junior years. At 5Ì4Ó and over 220lbs, I was the most depressed I had ever been in my short life. My self-esteem dissolved into nothing, I second guessed myself on everything, and I became highly passive, I was pathetic. My senior year was worse, I was struggling to get my degree done on time and I felt physically disgusting, my schedule became hectic and I began to starve myself. For a year I ate and slept very little, I was in a state of perpetual pain. I had head aches from the lack of food and sleep, I was sick most of the time, and I was very lonely. I lost weight, but I looked cadaverous, with my sunken eyes and pallid skin, I was so unhealthy. I graduated, but sadly it was hardly a great occasion for me, I was so entrenched in my wretchedness that I hardly noticed it. I had reached bottom. It was a slow, hard climb out of the hole I dug myself into; it took me nearly 8 months to recover from my asinine attempt at weight lose. The hardest thing for me was to regain my courage; I had to make a goal for myself, a concrete decision that gave me a definite direction. I was given that chance with a teaching assistance position under my favorite professor. I spent a semester working with the person I respect beyond all others and revere for her knowledge and talents. It took me most of that semester to build up the self-esteem that I needed to believe I deserved the job, that it was not given to me for pity, but because I could do the job. This gave me the strength to then to ask this professor for one more thing, if she would have me as a research assistant. She told me it would be hard work and it would take a lot of time, but if I was willing she had a perfect idea for something I could do. It has been hard work and I have had several late nights, but I am happy, I have a direction, I have a goal. Until now my life had been defined by how I did not fit the media images of thin women and patriarchal ideals of femininity, now working with a woman who is not only doing a ÏmanÌs jobÓ, but seeing a woman be a leading member in their field gave me confidence in my own abilities. I may be a woman, but I am an engineer and I am a good one, no single beautiful body could do as much for society as I can with my mind. My weight is a health issue, not who I am, and I am addressing it as such. I am taking care of myself with nutrition and exercise, weight lose is a side effect, but my well being is the goal.

72.
I am a Black Woman, 5'9" tall and weigh about 350 pounds, I am 27. I have, since the time I was a young child been told I am beautiful and, I have always believed it. I am healthy, happy with myself physically and otherwise, and my life is good. When I was a teenager, talk shows became all the rage, and every so often, I would see a Fat woman or former Fat woman on television crying over some injustice done to her by her peers. I honestly was amazed by this because I had never (not really) experienced being mistreated because of my size. I can count three times in my life where my size was an issue:

#1 When I was about 16, my friends and I were in the mall and this boy tried to get my number. When I ignored him (I guess he didn't think a Fat Girl should have standards) he called me FAT B---H. All of my friends just laughed at him and then we began to make fun of his clothes. He walked away hurt, having been "dissed" by a group of girls.

#2 When I was about 18, another boy tried to get my number and when I turned him down,(darn those standards again) he told his friends I was too fat anyway. This of course left me unscathed, to me, he was a nobody anyway.

#3 When I was 22 or 23, I was catching the shuttle from Boston to New York and arrived early so was asked if I wanted to get on an earlier flight. I said yes, but when I got on the shuttle, it was of course very crowded. This woman leans over to a friend of hers and says, "Where is SHE going to sit?" Hearing her, I turned straight to her and said in a beautifully clear voice, "Hopefully not next to you, could you imagine the ignorance I would absorb, my goodness". At which a few people laughed and clapped and a lovely young man INSISTED that I sit near him.

So, all in all, other than "regular" life stuff, I would say that I haven't experienced anything bad about being Fat. My mother, grandmother and aunts, all being Fat women themselves I guess set great examples for me. I have always been a clothes whore and they taught me very early on how to dress (I am of the hourglass variety of Fat women), how to hold my head up high and love myself uncondititonally. Whenever I saw images of thin woman, white and black in magazines, television, etc. I never thought "why not me?" I've never thought of them as being unrealistic either, it's always just been my thought that those are those women, and I am me. They are beautiful yes, but so am I. Everyone in this world isn't going or supposed to be the same, it just isn't at all possible.

I live in NYC, which along with L.A. is thin capital USA. I don't feel out of place, I wear the same things my friends wear, I stomp around NYC in my heels and boot cut jeans and I hold my head high. I date as much or sometimes more than they do. I am proud of myself. I am complimented all of the time by men, women, thin and Fat. I am who I am. If I don't love me, who in the world will? I don't mind not being anonymous.

73.
I first became aware of body image before i was 10, my grandmother would say before i ate anything - you'll be fat if you eat that, in the next breath she would tell me to save the best bits on my plate until last this gave me two issues - Fat is Bad and a consequence of my own choices and Food as a reward.

My grandmother became more abusive towards me so i ate as a rebellion against her telling me not too.

Food controls my life and i am very overweight.

When i was 21 a new bar opened me and all my friends applied as bar staff, they took photo's as part of the interview, i was the only one that didn't get the job.

I spent 4 months working in Iran, most people there are quite short and the women tend to be very small, everyone wears hejab to 'protect modesty' in spite of this i was conspicuous in my height and weight everybody stared - everybody. people actually came up to me and gawped at me open mouthed. I was doing good work, but they made me feel like a freak.

I went for an interview at a sports bar, i had never been there before and did not know anything about the uniform. The manageress, a petite lady, came to me asked me to fill in some forms, she then left me waiting over an hour for the interview. The interview lasted 20 minutes and went very well, then she said 'well you've got the job, but i don't think you'll be comfortable wearing the uniform' she showed me a miniskirt and cropped top, she said ' i'm not discriminating we'll get it in your size if you like'. I just don't understand why she felt the need to humiliate me like that and waste an hour and a half of my day.

4 years ago my best friend said ' i think people stare at you because you are so pretty not because you are overweight' .... i didn't realise at that point that people stared at me. I have been concious of this everyday since, people really do stare. I have also been single since then, i no longer think anyone could possibly look at me for any other reason than my weight.

I have started wearing colourful clothes (instead of the usual black) and projecting the confidence i have in my positive traits - i know i am a good person, i know i have nice hair, i know i wear quality clothes, i know i have pretty eyes - i have confidence in these things - but i will never feel positive about my body image.

74.
Self image is something I have stuggled with most of my life. I was a shy child with very little friends. In my twenties I developed a health problem which caused me to gain a lot of weight. Because I cannot change what I inherited I have come to accept it and this has given me a great release from the normal social norms that is placed on women. I now have a wonderful job as a Realtor in my community, I have lots of friends and lots of fun now that I have accepted myself for who I am inside. We are much more than looks, be happy, smile, hold your head up and don't let people drag you down and you will be just fine.

75.
I am a 16 year old high school student in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. I have never had a 'good body image'. In saying that, I mean that for as long as I can remember my mom has 'suggested' healthier options to food and trips to the gym by saying "we need to get healthier". I am only 16 years old, but i feel like i've had the confidence issues of someone in their thirties (my mother). I am about 5'7" tall and 180 lbs. I have always been overweight and i think that even if i lost all of it, i would still feel like a cow. one of my best friends is 5'3" and 130 lbs. i envy her sooo much. she is so beautiful. She and i are probably border-line ED, but i really just wish that i could stay on one side of that line. I don't have the confidence or self-control to go one way or the other and i feel like i am always thiniking about my massive weight. I cant get my mind off of it. The thoughts are always there. I am both jealous of and disgusted with anorexics and bulemics. There are days when i walk through the hallways at school and i just think "Oh, my God. She is so thin! why cant i look like that...why am i so fat. I am never eating again." I know that my thoughts aren't good, or healthy for me, but i don't know how to get help. My mom is just as obsessed as i am, but in different ways. My sister thinks that i am the perfect size and wants to look like me. My friends are all pretty thin and they tell me i'm pretty, and that i'm fine the way i am, but for some reason, i just can't let myself believe them. i dont know how to get help. i dont know what to do. i dont know which side of the line i should choose. i have a disturbing feeling that no matter which side i choose i will forever regret it and wish that i was prettier. I dont trust anyone when it comes to comments on appearances. I fear that in the future it will cause a lot of problems in dating and/or marriage situations. i have decided to become a vegetarian in hopes that the lack of meats will help me to lose weight. i run all the time. the lowest weight i have been since i was in sixth grade is 175. I disgust myself. I hate to look in the mirror, but i am drawn to it. I try to focus on music or art, but i end up doing something about weight. i'm not sure where i was going with any of this. I guess i just hope that by being honest about this for the first time in my life that someone will hear it and they will listen. I hope that someone does something to stop this vicious cycle. When a mother has low self esteem it passes on to her daughters. My sister and i are proof of that. WHY CANT WE JUST BE HAPPY THE WAY WE ARE? NOBODY REALLY WANTS TO BE A CLONE OF SOMEONE ELSE. I WOULD DIE TO TRULY FEEL BEAUTIFUL FOR ONE DAY. I HAVE NEVER TRULY FELT BEAUTIFUL MY WHOLE LIFE. that shouldnt be the case. everyone should feel beautiful everyday. im just not sure that that is a realistic possibility for me anymore.

76.
Hello. IÌm a physician in my mid thirties. I have two beautiful daughters who inspire me daily. I hope to be able to be a good role model for them, and this motivates me everyday to do my best. Being a working mother has really opened my eyes. The demands from all sides can be overwhelming. If I put my family first, I am not being devoted to my profession. If I put my job first, I am being a crap mom. Finding that balance between the two has been so much more challenging than I ever imagined. And that balance point constantly changes. The realization that you canÌt have it all hits you smack in the face more times than youÌd ever want. Regardless of how tired I am or how many hours I have worked, I still have to come home and make dinner, clean the house, play with the kids, bathe them, and then put them to bed. WhereÌs hubby during all this? While he is great and does help somewhat, he gets to play basketball before dinner and watch ESPN. Thank goodness for him that I really do like him a lot :). If the kids are not raised well or if the house isnÌt in order, societal norms still ÓblamesÓ it on the woman. DoesnÌt matter than I am the primary bread winner too. So IÌm tired. But IÌd rather be tired and happy than well rested and without my family.

77.
As a child I was thin and petitte. This made my parents proud and I received acceptence all around. I was your typical caucasion Californian girl who had everything her heart desired. The beginning of my childhood was like a fairy tale. I was such a beautiful child people would stop my Mom on the street to tell her of my beauty. One man even gave my Mom a $50 silver dollar to put in a college savings account for me. My Mom like a hornet monitered my eating habits being that she had been a chunker when she was a child.

When I was 8 my parents divorced. Being that my MomÌs watchful eyeÌs were now at work instead of monitering my visits to the refridgerator I began to pack on the pounds. Having a Grandmother who was origonally from OK did not help. Her basic cooking philosophy what to dip everything in flour and fry it in butter. In the culture of my family everything is celebrated with food. Everyone of my lifes tragedies and mildstones were celebrated with some sort of desert. Being that all of the members of my immediate maternal family are obese I instinctivley learned to acknowedge my emotions through food by the examples of those around me.

I never realized that I was chubby until the school yard bullies began making fun of me at the age of ten, calling me such names as beached whale, whalrus, and tub-of-lard. Mind you the boy who was now persecuting me was once my Kindergarden sweet heart. Thus a yo-yo dieter was born. At the age of elevan I began my first diet, slim fast and I began taking karate classes. I took some of the weight off but have always been a good twenty pounds overwheight rendering me the 3rd wheel on dates all through High School.

As an adult I thought the days of the schoolyard bullies were over until I asked my College crush on a date. It was at this time that I learned because of my fat I was viewed as an A-sexual woman by all attractive men. I have always been the best friend, the big or little sister but never the romantic conquest. I told myself the men in College were just not mature. I began going out to clubs with some of my girlfriends. They assured me how georgious I looked. It was not until we were at the club and the man I asked to dance turned me down and asked my friend to dance a few minutes later that I realized I was wearing a scarlet ÓFÓ around my neck for FAT! Somehow everyone in society had branded me a second class citizen because my wastleiine was a few inches bigger than those around me.

I got my first corporate job and thought my sexual appeal would have no influence on my career so long as I was a good worker. I soon learned from my area manager that production did not matter. A girl in the office he wanted to sleep with began receiving all the extra bonusses and promotions I had benn working for though I had produced greater revenue for our division.

No matter how well I groom myself or how nice I dress; no matter how much perfume and jewelery I wear, no matter how nice my face is painted; no matter how kind, loving, and giving I may be I am never seen by the school yard bullies as anyone but a FATTY.

What gives a boss, a guy at the club, a teenager at the mall or anyone the right to judge someone based on their looks? After all our skin, our bodies are merely the shells that house our true selves: our minds, intellects, and spirits. Does a size six body guarantee loyalty, integrity, or an industrious nature to an employer, lover, or friend?

The truth is in todayÌs society I beleive everyone feels discrimanted against be it their gender, race, religion, sexual preference, size or age. Companies promise not to discriminate but this is impossible when from birth we are programmed to pursue a perfection that is ever allusive. For if we attained said perfection factories would close and whole industries would crumble upon the foundations of self hatred. If we would all accept and love ourselves then we could give ourselves the permission to do the same for others. Beauty can not be based one hundred percent on muscles that will soften, breasts that will sag, or hairlines that will recede. To me beauty is found in acts of kindness such as buying a friend lunch that cant afford it, giving foster kids presents at Christmas, and giving people the gift of your acceptence both of their weaknesses and strengths and growing through life with them.

I love myself. I beleive myself to be a smart, georgious, sexy, kind, compassionate, intelligent , loving woman. Most of the time I do not think of myself as being Fat. I beleive this enrages some who have a challenge with accepting their own weaknesses. With this are birthed the undeserving comments of "you have such a cute face, itÌs a shame your fat." "Have you ever thought of loosing weight?" "Your not going to get a man interested until you loose the weight." "You look just like Monica Lewinski." "When is the baby due?" "ItÌs a shame your so fat. You could be so cute." My questions to socitey is : Why cant you just let me be happy? Why cant you allow me to love myself? All I want to do is to love you and be loved in return. To me beauty is love. Beuaty is in the flaws. ItÌs the flaws and imperfections that differentiate us from oneanother and make us part of the race called human.

78.
When I was in the second grade, we raised butterflies of the monarch/viceroy variety. Once they spread their wings for the first time, we took the net outside to the field, and let them go. A flurry of color and they were everywhere, going out to explore the world. Sometimes I think IÌm chasing them one by one now, figuring out where I fit in this big world.

79.
He didnÌt attract me right away, but throughout the evening I would catch myself staring at him, paying attention to him, wanting to talk to him. I felt flurries of jealous butterflies in my stomach whenever he even spoke to another girl. Weird. I didnÌt even know him.

That night he came with us to my friendÌs house. We watched a movie and one by one, people got up and left. Then there was 4 of us. I couldnÌt imagine anything happening. I thought about my ugly grey underwear. I thought about being safe. I thought about how he was a stranger.

I thought about how sexually charged we were together, and when my hand strayed too low on his warm body, we finally went upstairs. We were still awake as the sun came up, still awake as noon rolled around. I walked him to the bus stop. He was so much taller than me. Would I ever see him again? Was last night a mistake? I felt fuzzy as I watched the bus drive away.

I wanted more and I pushed and pushed. I was scared to just let it go at that. How could we never see each other again? So we made plans and he let me in...a little bit, anyway.

I would just go to his house in the bitter cold mornings, heÌd leave the door unlocked for me, and I would get in his bed. I wanted it to feel more natural than it did. IÌm not talking about sex - I didnÌt have sex with him. HeÌd hang onto me in tight embraces and let his breath out slowly, squeezing the air from me. And slowly we deteriorated.

His cotton wrapped around me but our lust shrunk in the wash. I saw his pot addiction and his immaturity for what they were. I saw the age difference and the lack of respect. I was sickened by the whole thing, eventually. I stopped calling. So did he.

I confess, he was the last guy I kissed; itÌs been 2 and a half years and I havenÌt had anyone since. Sometimes IÌm full of regret, and sometimes I can see the value in our 2-month one-night-stand. IÌve grown, grown up - no more jealous butterflies, no more one-night-stands.

IÌm worth more than that.