Perspective: A Teen’s Struggle with Weight Loss and Depression

I was only 13 when I started to worry about my weight. My diet was horrible, I exercised maybe once a week — and yet everyone said it was stupid to be worried because I was, “skinny.” In my mind, this could not have been further from the truth. To me, skinny was a word of the past. All I could focus on were the stretch marks on my thighs and stomach. My parents said that I was “just filling out” and that I was “beautiful no matter what”, but they had to say that; they’re my parents.

My friends were not just slim, but toned. I promised myself that over the summer holiday before the 9th Grade, I would get fit and look just like them. I couldn’t talk to any of my friends about what I was going through, and anyone else I talked to just thought I was fishing for compliments. I was hearing things like, “Stop talking about your weight, it’s just making us feel bad,” and, “look, you know you're skinny so you don’t need to draw attention to it.” I felt bad enough without people inexcusably making me feel guilty about feeling bad in the first place. It was a never-ending spiral that I was riding down, down, down. It was like a plane, car, or bike going at top speed, and finally losing control, skidding, and crashing into a depression. Although they tried to support me through this emotional roller coaster, my parents just kept giving me milkshakes, candy, white bread, pasta, and everything else that I had sworn off for the summer. They didn’t understand how important it was for me to start eating healthy. I was convinced that if I lost enough weight, not only would I look better, but I would gain control of my emotions once again. Too much was riding on the line and I put a lot of pressure on myself — so much that it was affecting me physically. I started to sleep badly, my immune system was horrible, and I was always cold and tired. I reached an all-time low in my life and I was scared, really scared, that I wouldn’t be able to claw my way out of the hole I had dug myself into.

But then, one day, I woke up with a whole new perspective. I don’t know — maybe it was the healthy salad the night before, but more likely than not, I was just tired of being in a negative place. It’s possible that 99% of everyone reading this already knows what I realized that morning, but I want to share this vital piece of information with the 1% who are stuck in the same unforgiving trap of labels and social pressures that I was: you are not skinny, you are not fat, you just are. “Skinny” and “fat” are two labels that fluctuate with perspective. This was a tremendous realization on my part, and one that I truly believe not enough people have achieved yet. I have nothing against trying to be more healthy, and that is still a goal that I am trying to achieve, but there is a serious problem when your goal is to achieve the social definition of “pretty”. We all want to be “beautiful”, but in a hundred years, that definition will have changed drastically. For example, the Greeks believed that a woman was beautiful if she had more masculine features. This just goes to prove that being “beautiful” or “pretty” is superficial and both are confining labels that pressure the young and old, male and female alike.

Now, I’m not going to be cliché and say that true beauty is what’s on the inside (though this is completely true), but I believe beauty is how you define yourself. Because you are beautiful. Yes, you can always improve in some way, but those perfect imperfections add to you, and therefore add to your true beauty. Years after this experience and change in perspective, I still sometimes have days where I look at a model on the front of a magazine and start to doubt my self-worth, but then I remind myself that I am not a label. My self-worth is not defined by my weight, my hair, or my facial features. I am beautiful and you are too.