Size is just a number.

This is just a perfect quote for something that I wanna address tonight. I usually don't do topics, but this is something that I feel super passionate about and something that I've recently been getting more involved in.

Women and their weight.

I do, but apparently not too many people do, women especially.

I struggled with weight my entire life and I still do to this day. I was a "fat kid" and sometime around mid high school I got sick of it and started walking. Thats it. And I dropped a ton of weight. I felt better, I looked better. College rolled around and I gained some back, but I hit the gym up and was soon even thinner than before. Then I graduated and it kind of all went downhill, though.

I will preface this by saying that I am not saying that I'm fat. I could afford to lose some weight, gain some muscle, get into better shape. But all in all, I'm fine with the way I look weight wise. We all have our days when something doesn't fit right or we look in the mirror and groan but seriously, WHO DOESN'T? Some of the "thinnest" people I know look at themselves in the mirror and see a "fat" version of themselves. 

What pisses me off is that women feel the need to be skinny. They're going to any extremes to not see any fat rolls, not have any curves. Anorexia, diet pills, excessive exercise, sometimes all combined. Am I the only one who sees something wrong with that? What are we teaching our younger generation of women? That they're only going to be loved if they're a size zero and can see their bones through their skin? I've been there. I've also gotten over that.

It's like, when you accept the fact that you're going to have curves, that you're never going to be a size 2, 4, or even 6, that a weight itself just lifts from you. Size is just a number. I've realized this recently.

Weight is just a number, too. It can't measure how you feel about yourself. It can't measure how healthy and fit you are. It can't tell you how much muscle you have. 

The Biggest Loser is challenging America to get fit and I couldn't agree more with that. We do need to get fit. There are people with food addictions and people who fall under this 'obese' category who need to lose weight to save their lives. But that's not EVERYONE. That's not middle school kids skipping lunch. 

We need to support each other, as women. Taylor Swift said something like "there's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." She completely takes that to way too high standards but this is definitely something in which that applies. I think it's sickening to see women making comments on other women's pictures about their weight. I think it's appalling when women post before and after pictures of their weight loss transformation and women are commenting 'wow you're so beautiful!' NO. NO NO NO. She was beautiful before. She's beautiful now. But now? She's healthier, she's more confident, she has less of a risk for heart disease. But beauty? That's ALWAYS been there.

There's so much wrong with how women treat other women and how women perceive the models and celebrities they admire. And this scares me for the future. For my future daughter, what kind of world is she going to live in? What if she has the same weight issues I did? Will she get picked on like I did? I'd fight anyone to death who'd say anything negative to her, and she's not even real yet. 

Sigh. SO yeah, I think we need to challenge America. To change their mindset. To take down all those pictures of models who have absolutely no figure. To start exercising and to start eating healthy because they want to take care of their body and mind, they want to be able to chase after their kids without getting out of breath or take the stairs without issues. Not because they want a number on a scale to tell them they're beautiful. In case no one's told you lately-- you're already beautiful.