The Skinny Girl
01/23/2012

I was born a chubby, healthy baby—the chubbiest of my siblings, in fact. But by the time I was in kindergarten I had slipped down the growth charts, and became just plain skinny.

Now, at 26, I hate that word.

I have scoliosis, which adds to my body issues, as my waist, ribcage, and shoulders are not balanced.

I was teased growing up by boys and girls—for my knobby knees, for shaking along with the pencil sharpener when I sharpened my pencils at school, for looking like I “came from a concentration camp.”

People are uncomfortable with “different” at all ages, I have come to find, and unfortunately it is seen as acceptable to react cruelly.

Sadly, family members have been a source of negativity as well. I’ve been called a string bean, bribed to gain weight, and one uncle even commented that I looked like I was starving. When I was in high school, my mom took me to a psychiatrist because she believed I had an eating disorder. In grade 12, I never applied to colleges because she told me I wasn’t allowed to go to college until I “looked like a college student.”

When I finally got the courage to attend college, a girl driving by as I walked to class with my boyfriend yelled at me out her car window, “EAT SOME FOOD!” I cried a lot.

The honest truth is that I don’t have an eating disorder. I eat food. I don’t restrict, I don’t vomit. I almost never exercise, but when I do it’s because I want a healthy heart and strong muscles, not to lose weight. I get angry that eating disorders exist, and want to fix the people who are experiencing them.

I simply can’t hold weight on my body. If I manage to put on a few pounds, it disappears. I feel powerless. I am just plain skinny.

Now I am 26, married, in nursing school. My husband tells me I am beautiful, and I know he thinks I am, but I still don’t like myself. It’s sad because there are actually times when I feel okay about my body, but then someone will stare at me, or make a rude comment about my thinness, and I hate myself again. I have been conditioned to think that skinny is ugly, and this is what I believe most of the time.

As I sit here and browse these photographs of real women, I am thinking how beautiful they all are, and how I wish I could look like them. I want to weigh 145 pounds and have strength and curves. At 145 pounds my BMI would be 23 and I would never again have a doctor ask me how often I purge.

I am skinny, and guess what? The skinny girl is unhappy with her body too.

height: 5\'7\" weight: 102 lbs pants: 0-2 shirt: xs body shape: banana