Body image is the way one perceives themselves and in today's culture, too many women and girls feel pressured to look, act, and dress a certain way. A majority of women don't like what they see in the mirror and are struggling with their weight and resort to dieting. The pressure to be a woman is almost unsettling. You can't be too thin or too thick and you need to wear makeup, but not too much because you don't want anyone to think it's "false advertising" (like you're trying to sell yourself?!). You're supposed to look like a Victoria's Secret model, but don't you dare dress like one. It's this double-edged sword where nobody wins, so why are we still trying to appease others?

My doctor told me I was overweight when I was in the fourth grade, maybe that's when I started hating my body. My weight became this obsession that I couldn't shake from then until throughout high school. I always knew I was chubbier than the other girls my age and I had always wondered if they noticed too. Nobody addressed it, nobody picked on me for it, they just made me feel it; when getting undressed in the locker room and borrowing clothes from each other. It's easy to hear people tell you that you don't need to lose weight, but it's not easy to hate your body daily and be disgusted when you look in the mirror. Going what I went through, it makes me fear for my little sisters, 12 and 14, because I know what kind of self-esteem I had when I was their age.

I went back and forth with "diets," something I referred to as eating as little as possible and sometimes not at all, too. I took careful consideration of everything I ate, the saying, "A moment on your lips, forever on your hips," rang through my head, every. single. time. I ate anything. I read somewhere that you'll lose weight if you chewed your food 20 times, so I began counting the times I chewed my apple slices or granola bar. It became tedious, exhausting, I was sick of the obsession. I probably spent more time pinching my stomach and thighs in front of the mirror or sucking in my gut in photos than anything. Even the days I felt good about myself, catching a reflection of myself at a wrong angle in a store window brought my reoccurring issues to the surface.

I never really told anyone my problems with food because I didn't want them to think I was having problems. Because really, I was fine. But there were so many things I simply wouldn't eat, and there were so many times where I just thought about where my body would store what foods and how many pounds would I gain this week if I ate this or that? Why was every time I drop a pants size a gain for me? According to a study, 91% of women dislike their body type. And here's the thing, women who are unhappy with their appearance don't always resort to healthy habits, but instead put their forks down.

A year after I've graduated high school, I still can't talk to anyone about my weight. So many people come to me and compliment me about the weight I've lost and ask me how I did it. It's a topic of conversation that comes up with literally everyone I talk to that I haven't seen in a while. And here's the thing, I hate it. Talking about my weight when I'm in a healthy and positive place in my life is extremely difficult because I'm still working on being able to be comfortable with myself, and bringing it up honestly only makes me uncomfortable. As my pants fitting looser and looser became more of an accomplishment for me, I started focusing on where I came from, not with what I was unhappy with at that point. It was difficult, but my faux confidence and faked self-esteem turned into something incredible -- me actually feeling happy about my body.

And thankfully, I'm not the only one. Recently, a new wave of confidence among young men and women has been trending on twitter with the hashtag, "#bodypositive." Basically, body positivity is this crazy idea that we should stop trying to change ourselves and focus on who we are now and even love ourselves. In this day and age, it seems like a crazy concept to be able to accept yourself and realize that we're all worth love and self-care and all that good stuff. Yes, I'm sure the notion existed before, but now with social media buzzing and causing a stir, loving yourself is becoming the new norm and there's really no right way to look. There's just something so empowering by a woman being healthy and confident in her appearance. With our growing social media presence and selfie culture, it's becoming so much easier to feel confident and get a quick ego boost by dropping a selfie on the 'gram. Not that you should turn to likes as a form of validation, but if you're feeling good about yourself, why not share it with the rest of the world? You deserve it!

It's not easy, by any means, but loving your body with all of what you see as imperfections just feels good! Being able to look in the mirror and not hate every scar and stretch mark or rogue body hair is such an incredible feeling. And if you feel good about yourself, don't worry about what other people think! Don't ever let someone tell you you're a narcissist or "full of yourself" because really, why is that any of their business if you are? We're a generation taking back the idea of negative body image and turning it right around. So go out and buy that dress you were too afraid to or wear some nice underwear because nobody but yourself is stopping you from feeling good.