I have always been a skinny girl. It was never through starving myself or working out like crazy, it’s just who I am.

And yes there was a time that I gained some weight, but once I resolved the underlying issue I went back to my normal body weight, which is skinny.

I find it difficult to admit or talk about that openly because there seems to be such disdain for skinny women in our culture. Before you stop reading this because you think “What is she talking about? All the models are skinny…” and “That’s what the media pushes on us”, hear me out.

We both praise and hate skinny women in this culture. We tell lies about them constantly because somehow perceive them as other than human.

I recently posted on Facebook about the need to accept all women, even skinny women. Somehow we say we need to accept people in all shapes and sizes and then it becomes totally acceptable to call someone who is thin a skinny bitch.

When I posted this I did get a few responses from women who totally agreed. They shared that they got more hate when they were thin and more love when they were heavy. But for the most part, women didn’t engage. I noticed when my female friends on Facebook posted anything about women being picked on because they are heavy or something else about their appearance, women would comment like crazy about being accepted for who they were. Specifically, not having to be perfect or skinny to be accepted. So if it’s about being accepted for what’s on the inside, why do women think it’s permissible to attack skinny women? Why do we ignore the fact that skinny women are part of the “accept all women for who they are” philosophy?

Because there are certain lies we tell ourselves about skinny women:

1. They all starve themselves.

2. They have some kind of special advantage in life because they are thin and don’t have to try as hard as other women.

3. Because they are thin, everything in their life is instantly perfect. Being thin means they can get the perfect guy, perfect job, and have all kinds of other stuff just given to them.

4. They have tons of friends.

5. They have absolutely nothing to complain about and have no problems in life.

Because being skinny solves everything!

That statement is really the larger issue women are facing. We believe that if we are skinny that equals a problem free life, so women berate themselves and beat themselves up because they think if they get skinny it equals perfect.

Then they become angry at themselves and other women when they can’t get there, because they have poisoned themselves with the delusion that happiness comes from appearance.

And I don’t think that it’s men doing this to us, I think we do it to ourselves. By comparing and despairing and imagining that happiness comes from a size.

Yes, the media does its fair share of promoting the skinny equals happy thing, but we as consumers don’t have to buy into it.

As women, we have are the largest consumers and we have power!

Not buying into it doesn’t mean attacking or alienating women who are thin, it means loving people at any size.

When we start doing this, popular culture will have no choice but to follow along. It’s up to women to empower themselves, accept themselves and stop attacking one another based on size.

Can u love yourself enough to accept others?

Self love is the biggest key in becoming a happier, healthier version of yourself without the self torture of dieting and self blame. Can you focus on giving yourself more of that and less of what you aren’t at the moment?

Focusing more on YOU and not on attacking someone else’s appearance will make a huge difference for all women big and small.