Recently, there has been a huge push towards body positivity. I find that awesome, beautiful, and absolutely spectacular. Why shouldn't women (and men) feel comfortable in their own bodies? Unfortunately, wherever there are people praising their body, regardless of how it looks, there is someone commenting on how "thick is the new skinny" or how "thin is no longer in." I get it, I grew up chunky, and I'm still trying to find ways to love my own body, now that I've started paying more attention to what I'm eating and how I'm exercising. This is my message to girls who are (or were) the naturally skinny girls, but it's a lesson that can resonate with everyone.

As previously mentioned, I grew up chunky. I tried everything to look like my friends; you name it, I tried it. There were diets and months that I would go to the gym two hours a day, everyday, and I still never looked like my closest friends. I grew up envying the girls who were skinny. I always felt that I was missing out. That's why when I started seeing videos depicting why thick girls rule and top reasons why it's better to date a bigger girl, I shared them. I resonated with them! I was the thick girl, the bigger girl.

But then I started reading some of the comments. Girls who are naturally skinny were genuinely upset. And I couldn't figure out why. I mean, to me, these skinny girls are perfect. Why should they be offended by us, the bigger girls, celebrating us? Then I took a second look at what the videos were really saying. They were saying that bigger girls are better than smaller girls. They were using the awesome parts about being large to degrade skinny girls. How is that any better than skinny girls putting down fat girls? Spoiler alert! It's not.

So here's my message to the skinny girls out there: love your body. Love it, cherish it, and treat it like the temple it is. Your physical features make you pretty, but how you act is what makes you beautiful. And it's wayyyyy more important to be beautiful from the inside. That's why I adore all my friends. They're beautiful from the inside. And my message to the fat girls out there, the girls like me: love your body, be proud of it, but don't knock others down while celebrating yourself. Instead of saying things like "cuddling with a thick girl doesn't feel like cuddling a pile of bones," say that "cuddling a thick girl is like cuddling a teddy bear!" Build yourself up, without tearing others down.

We come in many different shapes and sizes, and we need to support each other and our differences. Our beauty is in our differences. -Carre Otis

Please enjoy this picture with two of my best friends and I. This was inspired by you beauties.