To Women and Girls Across the Nation,

As I was searching the World Wide Web (something I’ve been doing way too often this summer), I came across some disturbing photos: “Pretty Girls Don’t Eat” is what was disgustingly written all over photos of clearly anorexic or bulimic women. These photos no doubt have a large following base due to the simple fact that when I typed “pretty girls don’t” into the Google search engine, the first result that popped up was “pretty girls don’t eat.”

“Excuse me? Pretty girls don’t eat, is that right? I don’t think so” were the first thoughts that emerged in my mind. Who would believe a saying as ridiculous as that? Then I did some research and discovered eating disorders/body image issue affect approximately 30 million Americans!

Let that sink in.

Thirty million of us look in the mirror each day and hate what we see, and some of those 30 million even believe this horrendous slogan! These people’s confidence and self-assurance is completely obliterated as a result of the high body standards to which our culture holds women and even men now.

Television, movies, and magazines used to be the main contributing factor to eating disorders and body image issues; however, now our society has an even more powerful force: social media. Our bodies have to be perfect in every way: that's what the media reinforces every single day. Can you remember the last time you went a full day without seeing an image of some beautiful, physically flawless woman or man on your news feed?

Websites such as Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr all revolve mostly around sharing images—and guess what we decide to share? We choose to share pictures of women and men with “perfect” bodies. These are the types of photos that have a countless number of comments along the lines of “OMG perfection (heart eyes)” or “Why can’t I look like her? (sad face).” The list goes on and on and as the number of followers grows on these accounts, so does the number of women and men with body image issues.

The sad part about the evolution of eating disorders is that it is no longer just caused by huge corporations selling us this bull crap fantasy of perfection. It is us. Normal, plain Jane individuals like ourselves are becoming famous and gaining thousands, even millions of followers because they have seemingly flawless bodies and it is because of us now! Even the word "healthy" comes with high expectations of rock-solid abs, a firm, perky butt and, magically, still some pretty large boobs even though the woman’s fat percentage is like 13 percent. These fitness accounts were meant to be inspiration for a healthy and fit lifestyle. Now fit and healthy can, apparently, only look one specific way, but in reality, even people who aren’t the ideal fitness models are extremely healthy individuals.

Now I’m not saying these people who have gone above and beyond creating a healthy lifestyle shouldn’t be proud of themselves. I’m saying that we should stop idolizing them! Beauty comes in all forms. Healthy comes in all forms. Just because some girl is skinny, doesn’t mean she is healthy. Similar to just because some girl has abs still doesn’t mean she is healthy! Stop striving to have a body you have no idea was even constructed in a healthy manner just because it is what our society has unrightfully deemed to be beautiful! I’m sick of the media telling us how we should look.

Women have to be skinny—but wait—not too skinny. You have to have curves. You have to have fat in all the right places and none in the wrong. Stop falling for the bull crap! Men, that goes for you too. You don’t have to be huge and brawny to be considered attractive.

Social media has become a place of self-loathing because we are letting it be. So, I say, screw the media! Instead of using media to promote and idolize people who fit into America’s narrow view of what beauty is, how about we promote an attitude like this:

Pretty girls DO eat. Pretty girls eat pizza. Pretty girls eat fruits. Pretty girls don’t just eat broccoli and carrots. Pretty girls don’t have abs. Or they do. Pretty girls wear sweatpants. Pretty girls have fat. Pretty girls have curves. Pretty girls are naturally skinny. Pretty girls don’t have huge butts. Pretty girls lift. Pretty girls don’t need to have thigh gaps. Pretty girls have biceps. Pretty girls are whatever they hell they want to be because size and shape doesn’t define beauty, and I’m sick of our society deciding what is beautiful and what is not. That small percent of “perfectly” constructed humans does not get to define your beauty or your worth, so accept your body. You are uniquely beautiful.

P.S. In a few decades we are all going to look like wrinkly, old prunes anyway. Life is too short to be obsessed with a form of beauty that has an expiration date.

-Mary