Don't shop plus-size dept, but I'm plus size???

I admit this whole thing really irritated me and made me uncomfortable and angry. But, you have to get uncomfortable before you can get comfortable. I've been on both ends. It is just as insulting to be called too skinny as it is to be called too fat. Today, people don't buy that I once weighed 98 pounds and I am Anorexic even at as high as 200 pounds. Eating disorders are not a "look" they are a disease, most people don't understand that. It was not a conscious choice I made to just stop eating. There is so much more to it, but I can't blame someone who is not educated about it to understand that.

Anyways, this whole thing has really made me think because I have a 9 year old little girl who is my entire world. I would do anything to make sure she never feels that pain that I felt at her age. It physically hurts my heart to know that I could have passed this gene to her and that it could be activated at anytime in her life if I do not take action.

I have known some women in the industry, and its frightening the things that are normal behind the scenes. The pressure that they are under is horrendus. I applaud women like Tyra Banks who stand up and don't take it and push to change things. Its hard to blame the girl in the picture or the video. Often these are young girls who have been "pimped out" by parents and the media. They grow up being fed the same crap we are, but the difference is, they may never witness reality for themselves. They actually live the fantasy that we are taught to strive for. If you have never seen reality, how can you differentiate between right and wrong? If your life has always been glamarous and rich and it has been fed to you that anything less is unacceptable, how can you go against the only thing you know? They grow up and more likely than not, they will realize that life is different, just like those of us on the opposite end of the spectrum. But by then, the damage has already been done...inside and out....personally and sociologically...psychologically and physically.

We, as a society, have to stop supporting these unhealthy visions of what beauty is. Everytime we buy thier clothes, read thier mags, or try thier diets we support them. There are disigners who will not make clothes above a size 8 because it just doesn't look the same on bigger girls. Its true too, I don't look as cute as my size 2 friend in the same outfit. But where they get us is, when we start wishing we could wear it. When we start dieting so we can "look" good in thier jeans. The field of marketing has an enitire division geared towards studying psychology and finding what it is that makes us buy. They know what pushes our buttons and they know how to get inside our heads. It is very real, you can google it, you can take college courses on the subject. Here is a video we watched in a class I took on Modern Social problems. I will warn you that it is disturbing. It is also almost an hour long, if you don't have the time, at least watch the chapter called "The Midriff" it's only 5 minutes.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/view/

I'm not saying that people are out to get us, lol. But seriously, they are in the biz to make money, to earn a living the best way they know how. Whether they are in the right or the wrong is not for us to judge. They cater to what brings in the bucks. Unfortunately, we all, in some way, have submitted to thier income thus increasing the demand for their products...be it clothing, shakes, pills, machines, contraptions, girddles, books, magazines, movies, TV shows, and the list goes on and on and on.....

The first step in changing this is not banning, blaming or maiming others. It starts INSIDE of you. If you learn to love yourself unconditionally FIRST, the rest will follow. If YOU accept yourself others will too. If we take proper care of the amazing machine that we call our bodies we won't need to "diet". If we set our own standards of beauty, coming from within, we will silently decrease the demand for unhealthy images and lifestyles. We will be examples for little girls all over the world who deserve to love them selves from the beginning of their lives all the way to the end, not learn to love themselves later in life after years of heartache and self-loathing and soul-searching. We may have had to fight for acceptance, but we can stop the cycle now and offer a safe world for our little girls who are sooooo important to our future! They are the ones who will birth and nurture the future of this planet!

Please think about that.