Content warning: Mentions of body image
My body is changing. Let’s face it, all of our bodies are changing at this point in our lives. I’m learning to love the changes my body is going through, but it isn’t easy.
Growing up, I was told I was too skinny and needed to “eat a hamburger.” Tears would well in my eyes every time someone told me this. I never thought it was an issue being “too skinny.” I always heard my family members say they were fat and needed to go on a diet. “Too skinny” was something I would have never thought to be an issue as a child. “Too fat” was never something I thought to be an issue as a child. My family members planted that seed in my head, and from then on, my body image issues started. My mom was always someone who would never negatively talk about her body in front of me. She never commented on my body, either. She would always tell me how beautiful I am and encourage me to love the skin I am in. One of my favorite things to do with my mom was to go shopping for clothes and shoes. She made me feel like the absolute most beautiful princess in the world. We would have a shopping day, and when we got back home, I would run upstairs while she sat on the couch and change into the new clothes she bought me. “Everybody welcome Reagan Booth!” my mom would announce as I had a fashion show for all of my new clothes. I never felt ugly, too skinny, or imperfect around my mom.
After she passed, I didn’t have anyone uplifting my body image or reassuring me about things a mother reassures her daughter of. I began middle school, where I saw girls going through puberty, filling out their shape, and looking completely different than me. I was skinny, was not going through puberty in the way other girls were, and I was ashamed of my body. If I turned down food or couldn’t finish my plate, “You’re too skinny; you need to eat more,” would slip from the mouths of the older women in my life. I felt like a lamb in the middle of wolves. Why are these older women tearing me down for something that I cannot control? Why are these older women not like my mom? What would my mom say if someone was commenting on her daughter’s 12-year-old body?
I began to sexualize myself at a young age because that was the only way I felt worthy in my skin. When I was naked, I wasn’t “too skinny” or “too flat.” When I had clothes on that a middle school and high school student should be wearing, that is when I was “too skinny,” that is when I was “too flat.” I would seek validation of my body from boys who went to my school. Is being naked the only time I have an acceptable body?
The struggles continued throughout my high school years. I would weigh myself any chance I got to see if I was gaining the weight everyone told me I needed to gain. I was nonstop eating to gain this weight. Nothing was working no matter how much I ate. Protein shakes didn’t work for me, lying all day in bed while eating junk food didn’t work for me, nothing helped. I finally began to experience the parts of puberty that I had longed for since I started middle school. I felt good in my body for once. I wasn’t “too skinny” or “too flat,” and I started looking like other girls finally! I obsessively stood on a scale once again. The disappointment burned through my body every time I dropped a pound.
I started having issues with my ovaries and had to make an appointment to get checked out at the OB/GYN. I was 17 and had never been to a gynecologist before. I told her the struggles I was having with my period and how painful, heavy, and tiring my cycles were. She told me I was too skinny, and that’s probably why I was going through the struggles that I faced. I knew there was something more. I felt pain. I bled through everything. I would stay in a ball all day in my bed because the pain and fatigue were too much. I felt in my body that “too skinny” was still not the answer.
I had multiple tests done that day. A few weeks later, my results came back. I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. If I had allowed myself to continue being defined as “too skinny,” I would have never gotten this diagnosis. I would have continued being in crippling pain, bleeding through everything, missing school events, and missing social events because being “too skinny” would have silenced me.
College rolled around the corner, and for once, I finally wasn’t comparing my body to other women. I felt good in my skin. My weight was steady, and I liked what I saw in the mirror. I felt healthy; I hadn’t heard that I was “too skinny” in months, and I put my body image on the back burner for once. When I gained weight, it wasn’t so much of an obsession anymore, but rather just a shrug of my shoulders and a smile on my face as I stepped off the scale.
The beginning of my sophomore year started, and all of a sudden, I was ashamed of what I saw in the mirror. I couldn’t button my jeans anymore. My belly was hanging over the top of my jeans. I couldn’t get pants over my thighs. My boobs wouldn’t fit comfortably in my bras anymore. My underwear was too tight. What is happening?
I wouldn’t let my girlfriend see me naked before I got in the shower. I was ashamed of the way I looked. I had always wished to have a womanly figure, one with curves, stretch marks, boobs, etc., and now that I have it, I can hardly stand to look at it sometimes. I stand in the mirror and look at my belly. It doesn’t look the same anymore. I used to have a flat, toned stomach. Where did the toning go? I went up two jean sizes in less than four months. What is happening to me?
My body is changing. I’m learning to love my growing body. I am healthy, able to walk, and able to do what I want to do. I am changing. I eat when I am hungry, and if that is more on one day and less on the other, that is okay. I am entering my 20s this year, and things are going to look different in my life. I just didn’t know my body would be one of them. The body I have gives me everything I need. My girlfriend loves my body. My body takes me places that bring me love and laughter. I am learning to love my body, even when it doesn’t look how it used to. I will not make myself feel the way people around me made me feel when I was growing up. I am going to love my body because that is what she needs.