Recently, I had a revelation about girls. When we tear ourselves down, we are unintentionally tearing down each other in the process. Calling yourself “fat" while standing next to a girl 30 pounds heavier than you causes her to reevaluate her own self-image. It's a never-ending cycle that needs to be broken. While college-aged boys are being celebrated for their beer gutted “dad bods," girls are constantly concerned about looking good when we should be concerned about feeling good.

Throughout high school, I never had much of an issue of being self-conscious about my body. Growing up with an older brother and a high metabolism, I never had much of a reason to worry about my figure. It wasn't until I went to college that I started to dislike what I saw in the mirror. Late night pokey sticks and dining hall food made the freshman 15 all to real for me, but even so, that's not where my insecurities stemmed from.

The psychological warfare truly began when I moved into a house with 35 women. Hearing a size 00 girl call herself "fat" and "pudgy" will really make you look at your size 8 thighs in a newly negative way. Hearing the girl down the hall whose body you'd kill for say she looks like “a chicken nugget" makes you think, if she is not thin enough then what the hell is wrong with me?

My mom came up for a mother's brunch with my sorority and I was having, in my own head, a fat day. I didn't even realize I was doing it but I would say things like, “are you sure I don't look big in this?" or “ugh I look like a giant next to her." Or “I wish I were tiny and cute like her." And at a certain point, my mom stopped me. She finally said, “You need to cut that shit out, I mean it. Many of the girls in this room are the same size as you, and you are all beautiful."

My mom was doing that thing again. You know? The one where she's always right? Why am I looking at my stunning sorority sisters in their ~*~size medium~*~ dresses and seeing beautiful slim girls, yet looking at myself and wishing I were two sizes smaller? In my own self-deprecation, I didn't realize that by body-shaming myself, I was making every other girl my size do the same. As unintentional as it is, in dragging ourselves down, we drag down each other. There is not a single person I know or love that I would speak about in the sense I sometimes speak about myself, and that's messed up.

So why do we do it? Why is it so hard to look in the mirror and like what we see? Boys get a beer gut and are accepted because “dad bods" are in right now. Why can't the mom bod be a thing too? It's OK to not look like a Victoria's Secret model. It's OK to eat that late night cookout tray (yes, all of it). And it's OK to be confident in your size and your shape, regardless of what it is. I'm starting to like my dining hall pooch and my french-fry thighs.