It's just this *thing* we grow up with. Barbie dolls and rushed meals and words that say "just be yourself" but translate, somehow, in the back of your mind, into "who's gonna want you?" And eventually, I guess, your salad dressing and your grades and your weight and your worth all get rolled up together into one number. One small thing that becomes so much of how you figure into the world.

And I don't think I really actively thought about it for a long time. Sure, Barbie's really pretty, but she also walks around on tiptoes all the time. You can't trust someone like that. And, really, noone was going to want me anyway, so I didn't have to worry. Candy is easier than people. It doesn't look at you in that way that means you're nothing. It doesn't poke you in stomach, like your own grandmother is likely to do, and tell you you're getting chubby.

Then I noticed a little more. There were whispers that this girl or that girl was sick. There were jokes. I didn't really think they were funny, but I didn't say so. Because those boys might joke about how a girl never ate, but I still knew who they'd be taking out on Saturday night. When those fashion magazines tell you to be yourself, you have to read between the lines a little. I didn't know that. But it was okay, because ice cream doesn't judge you, it's just good company. When you're alone, you have to find comfort where you can.

And then, a year or so ago, I was going out to lunch with a little girl I spend time with sometimes. She was nine then and she said she didn't want french fries because she wanted to make her tummy "curve in, like those really pretty girls." I wanted to cry and I had to work to keep it out of my voice, my eyes. Nine years old and she knows she can stop eating in order to achieve a concave belly. I didn't know how to defend her against that. I didn't know how to hold myself at a distance from it, either.

Now, I've come to care very much for someone in recovery. And the jokes, the ads, the "lifestyle," the constant onslaught, personally offend me. Because people are dying. Girls are dying or losing significant portions of their development to something that does not need to happen to them. Ever. We set up our society so that somehow this seems okay. But it's not. It's just not.

I don't love my body, but I understand that it's mine and it's got it's own kind of beauty. I see major flaws in the way I use food but I'm starting to address that. And when someone jokes now, I call them on it. I ask them to stop and think and decide what's so funny about a woman on the verge of death because she thinks she needs to be a part of that. I never wanted to live my life on plastic tiptoes, anyway. I definetely don't now.

Shannon

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