STOP!

An Anorexic’s View On Body Typing In Society

Before I jump in, I want to make note that I am focusing on women. I am fully aware that men suffer from this too and I am not disputing that, however, I am a woman and have experienced profiling by society and the media, so I decided to focus on that.

I’m just going to cut right to the chase. I have anorexia. Just because I am not a stick, doesn’t mean that I don’t have anorexia. I have received comments such as “I can’t associate anorexia with all of this” or “Anorexia? But you’re so big”.I will always have anorexia no matter how much I weigh or how much time goes by. It is something that I will always have to live with.

My anorexia started in 7th grade when I compared myself to the skinny dancers in my performing arts school. I remember when people would jokingly say things like, “Did you gain weight over night?” That was actually the straw that broke the camel’s back. It continued and gradually got to the point of me living on a handful of berries and half a yogurt a day. Shortly after that diet began, I was hospitalized with a dying heart rate and for being dangerously underweight. After weeks of medical treatment, inpatient, day, intensive outpatient, and outpatient treatment, I am thrilled to say that for the most part, I have recovered.

The real question is…..now what?

Well, since treatment, I have gained a good 20 something pounds. When people ask me how I feel about this, my only response is….WHO CARES?!?!

People see weight gain as such a loss. I used to see it as such a loss. I am exactly the weight that I was at a year ago from today, and all I can say is, I am a heck of a lot happier than I was when I was underweight and emaciated. Now, that doesn’t mean that i don’t struggle. Of course I struggle with how I look. I always will struggle with my body image. But overall, I am much happier, so the weight gain is something that I will just have to live with. I started to seriously HATE myself when I was younger. I hated the way that I LOOKED, the way that I ACTED, the amount that I WEIGHED, and thanks to society and the music industry, it got much worse.

Celebrities deal with this on a daily basis. Incredible musicians and actors such as Adele Adkins, Demi Lovato, and Jennifer Lawrence deal with backlash from the media regarding their weight. All of these women respond with the same response as mine. They are women who don’t give in to societies views regarding body image and weight. It is unfortunate that not all women are this strong. Sometimes, the hate hits beyond the surface and self hatred takes over.

Being in the music industry, I have noticed that weight is a huge deal. My participation in musical theatre has subjected me to being profiled based on my body type and my looks. After my iTunes debut, I received many comments regarding my body type and my “look”, which definitely shook my confidence. When I started to lose hope, I remembered how I felt when I was sick. Having some “meat on my bones” is much better than being so thin that a strong wind could knock me over. At this point, the hard part is not getting myself to realize it, but getting the rest of the world to realize it. This is the mission of many women these days.

We as a society are so fixated on how women look, and it’s time to say ENOUGH.

That being said, I have a message for all of you:

STOP!!!

STOP telling girls with meat on their bones that they are perfect

STOP telling skinny girls that they are unhealthy

STOP telling average sized girls that they in no way can have an eating disorder

STOP treating women like they are a piece of meat

STOP saying that you like women with some “meat on their bones”

By saying these things, you are objectifying women and not seeing them for who they really are. This brings me back to my point. I developed anorexia because of the standard of beauty that we are held to. It is unfortunate that millions of women suffer from the same things and some women go as far as to killing themselves because of the hatred that is developed. Society needs to back the hell off. As a talented singer, Brock Phillips once said, “Who are you to tell somebody what they aren’t?” Where do people get the right to tell someone that they aren’t beautiful because they are too thin or too big or too short or too tall? Why can’t we look past the physical stuff and focus on the personal for a change? Some of the most influential women of all time are not super skinny. They are average sized women who focus more on their career and on making a difference than on what new mascara Cover Girl released last month. Why can’t we focus on these women? To that same extent, why can’t women focus on their own positive traits rather than their body mass indext?

I leave you with this. Society, fuck off. Stop fixating on our looks and start looking into our souls. See all that we stand for and all of the good that we can bring to the world aside from our breasts and our many different body types. Help eliminate eating disorders and suicidal tendencies by looking beyond the flesh and bones.

Stop telling women what they need to be.

It is not your job.

It is not your place.

It is not your purpose.

OUR purpose is to be who we are and YOUR job is to at least try accept it.