A bunch of thoughts on being fat.

I was first told I was "fat" by a dance instructor when I was 8.  Eight years old.  I was in 3rd grade.  I had my own thing going and I thought I was pretty fly back in those days.  The source of this fat accusation? I was 5 pounds over the normal range for my age.  5 whole pounds.  Pretty much the end of the world right?

Let me tell you what happens when you tell a child they're fat.  They reevaluate everything they've ever thought of themselves.  At 8 years old, I was a championship Irish dancer who had won more national titles than most kids my age could count to.  I was also at the top of my class, and I was invited to all the "cool" birthday parties.  But that one day when my instructor decided to label me with this terrible, horrible word, everything changed.  It no longer mattered that I was a great dancer, a great student, a great friend.  How could you be anything great if you were FAT?

I went on my first diet when I was 9.  I started going to the gym when I was 10.  When I was 11, I started down the road towards my first eating disorder.  I have been riding this rollercoaster ever since.

Even if you yourself haven't been the target of such hateful words directly, I'm sure you've experienced them indirectly.

Maybe you were told you're fat like this...

Or maybe it was like this...

Or even this...

However it happened, those feelings of physical inadequacy stuck because there was nothing that came before them that could have taken their place.

I want to share something with you guys that Kate Winslet said, that is so powerful to me.

As girls growing up, there are always certain women in our lives who we look up to, and because we admire them so much, they are by default beautiful.  But they, like us, have grown up in a society where loving and accepting your body is as taboo as being fat.  Because of this, we grew up watching the women we found so beautiful degrade themselves and their appearances. 

While your role models surely didn't mean you any harm by not actively embracing their chubs, the damage was surely done: if the women we admire most in the world continually put themselves down, how can we possibly grow up to see ourselves as beautiful? 

And if those women could have such a profound effect on you, imagine the kind of effect you're having on the women you surround yourself with.  Which leads me to my major point: learning to love your body does not end with you.

Let that sink in for a second. 

Loving your body and outwardly promoting this acceptance goes so far beyond yourself.  It sends a message to every other woman out there who is struggling with the same things we all are.  It sets an example for the women who look up to you (yes, you!), and it sets a precedent for an honorable way to treat ourselves that will eventually filter down to the next generation of women, little girls who right now have yet to learn that it isn't okay to love yourself just the way you are.

It is only by consciously rejecting the superficial standards of beauty society has defined for us that we can be free to love ourselves and teach our friends, our family, and our daughters to love themselves the way that every girl should.  It's a long road ahead of us, but the good news is this: it only takes one person to start a movement, and you can be that person.  Every time you put a little positivity into the world, you drop a tiny pebble into the sea of women who are still stuck feeling like they will never be good enough.  And while it may seem too small to make an impact, just keep in mind that every pebble makes a ripple on the water, a ripple that will always travel far further than you ever could have expected.  If we do this together, one by one, we could change the world. #