I am a thin person. I eat what I want when I
want, and people assume I am healthy because of my size. I have been blessed
with a small appetite and a relatively fast metabolism. I know I am privileged
in this way because I hardly think about my size as being something other than
"normal."
Having thin privilege means I get compliments on my body because I am conventionally skinny. I have had women say to me they want to look like me, have my body type, or wish they were thinner in general.
The truth is, my body type is not something to aspire toward.
There are many teens and young women who are prone to eating disorders because they think this is what it means to be pretty. We think there is only one right way to have a body, and that is a thin body. But there is no right way to have a body.
I don't try for my weight and never have. I don’t work out for hours or count calories or avoid certain foods. I am a bad example for what it means to have “earned” my body. I just am the way I am.
Yet I try my hardest to look good -- my ideal image of beauty -- yet I still don't feel good enough. There are so many images of what it means to be beautiful; these unattainable standards are everywhere. We can’t “earn” any of this. It is not hard to see how the struggle to be body-positive in a world that celebrates thinness is extremely difficult and taxing for most women.
I don't want to have to apologize or justify my body type. No one should have to justify why their body is the way it is.
As women, we need to love each other, because we are the only ones who truly understand what it's like to be self-conscious about our weight. How it feels to change in a locker room of watching eyes. How it feels to not fit in the clothes you want to buy.
We are all different shapes and sizes, and we all have something different to worry about. What doesn't seem like a problem to you may be a problem to someone else.
Next time you see a thin girl or someone that you think looks better than you in any way, know you are uniquely you. There is something special about the way you are that somebody else admires you for.
