I'm Asian, living in Asia, and growing up around so many willowy, gorgeous girls in my country who eat so much and never gain a single pound has really done a number on me.
Post-puberty was kind to me, but going through it wasn't.
At my heaviest, I weighed 55kg. That made me one of the heaviest girls in the class. I broke down crying when I got into a new school and everybody fit into a size 26 skirt and a size 29 still wouldn't go up my butt.
I hated it, because everywhere I went I would be measuring the arms and thighs of other girls with my eyes. Even though I knew it was stupid; it was wrong; I still did it and I hated myself for it.
Although I've lost weight after puberty, I can never forget how my then-friends made fun of my big butt constantly, asking me how I let it get so big. Or the other incident, when I was sitting with my grandmother in the car one day and she pinched my waist and asked me how I could let myself get so fat. My waist was 25 inches at that time, and I thought it wasn't fat but since then I've been wondering what else I thought was "ok" but actually isn't.
There are so many things wrong with my body that I notice - uneven waist (one point is higher than another), uneven butt, short arms, protruding lower stomach. But I'm still OK with all these. It's my legs that I hate. They're big, bigger than most girls, and to make it worse the size makes it look even shorter than it already is.
But I've been facing the mirror every day, and telling myself that I am ok. I'm not perfect, but nobody said I had to be. I will probably never be satisfied, but that's ok too, because constant dissatisfaction means constantly looking out and improving myself. What I'm working on isn't self-satisfaction, but rather contentment and appreciation. And I'm working on that, one mirror at a time.