Obsession With Perfection

A few years ago, when I played field hockey, most of my family members complimented on my weight and said I have changed a lot in years. After, one day when my family from Pakistan skyped us and said they wanted to meet me and my siblings, one of them commented on my weight and said I have gone “fat” than I was a few years ago. I felt really insecure about my body and quit field hockey as a result. I started to skip lunch in school and go down in the art room and not surround myself with people. I started to eat less and start to be more depressive. Victims of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia are ignored and disgusted by society because they do not fit the “perfect model image” of what society has grown among women especially. In my culture, I have seen many older women talk about how they must dress to “impress” their husband or how they compete against other women and compare each other. As a young woman, I have been constantly being told to lose weight so I can get married at an early age or go to the gym when you have free time. Media has imposed thinness through the female and male models advertising, though fast food restaurants who have included “healthier” choices, etc. Although our background and culture play a strong role in our eating habits, other factors like family, environment, low self-esteem, and difficult experiences can cause someone to become anorexic or bulimic. In today's society, many people are affected by eating disorders, are impacted by the images of slim women and muscular men appearing on front covers of fashion magazines. These eating disorders are most common among young teen as they starve or binge themselves trying to attain what the fashion industry considers being the “ideal” figure of a perfect woman or man. For example, in the Meghan Trainor’s song “All About That Bass”, where she sends a message which can be harmful to females

Ever since a young boy, I was known for my crazy eating habits. I had an abnormally large sweet tooth and stomach. There would be days I would eat a whole bag of candy and still have a taste for more sweets. I had a fairly thin physique with some muscle tone. Everybody told me that one day, I’ll become obese and regret all these “bad” decisions; I disregarded every comment and lived by the motto, “ As long as I don’t get fat, I’m fine.”

My freshmen year, surprisingly, passed by quickly. I was so busy with volleyball, basketball, track, and new school rules that I did not have much time to pick apart my body. There was still a part of me obsessing over my weight . I really started picking out my flaws my summer going into my sophomore year. I worked out every day in the summer. I started out by running the bike path that circles through my town once a day. The path’s distance was about 4 miles. Midway through the summer I started running the path once in the morning and once at night. I still was not satisfied with how I looked.

Since I was a little kid I had trouble with obesity, and controlling it. I wasn’t super active or athletic, except for in the summer when I swam for my summer league swim team, I didn’t like fruit or vegetables all that much, and I loved to eat junk food. And with my family, I didn’t feel like change was necessary in order to achieve success in life, so I didn’t really try to be physically fit,

What I had was a body, a body with a heart, brain, liver, kidneys, and blood that pumped through every fiber of my being. Anorexia nervosa attempted to destroy what I had, but I refused to let it. I made a promise to myself that every mirror I encountered I would point out what I did have and not what I didn’t have. However, which each look I took Ed tried to show me a different picture of myself. I had a hard time trying to find the right picture, the one I knew was the true me. I had to teach myself that a perfect body is not what I truly wanted. What I wanted was a healthy body. Health in today’s society has taken on a different meaning. Images of young women in magazines are whom we perceive as healthy. However, I learned that true health couldn’t be shown in an image. Instead it's our internal rather than our external of our bodies that show true health. Teaching myself that was difficult, but by doing so I taught myself confidence. I now look inside myself for who I am, rather than judging what I see on the outside. I’ve learned a lesson most women never learn. Becoming grateful of what I do have, I learned to be confident. I am more self-assured today, than I was two years ago. Gratitude has served as a constant reminder in my life. Whether my body be shamed or admired, I know it’s richness, it’s intents, and it's

Recently I have been motivated by my friend Adrian’s life changing decision of putting behind his desire of just letting go and being determined to live a healthy life. I have always had an active life and enjoy playing sports but figured that it wouldn’t be enough and I am currently on a diet which has cut down on my calorie and sugar level intake. Nowadays I take the time to read nutrition labels and measure portion sizes which make a great difference. Every now and then I have a break and consume foods that are not healthy but I now I am doing better now. It is a constant struggle to not get tempted into a delicious looking pizza or some perfectly rounded donuts but I stay motivated to achieve my

Months ago, I could not make myself look in the mirror at the overweight girl who stared back. It affected how I thought, where I went, and what I wore. I tried eating better and working out, but gave up the regime quickly due to excuses I created for myself.

I've begun and ceased diets. I've cried about it, and I've lashed out to others because of my own weaknesses. During my puberty years, starting when I was about 12 years old I started to get severely bullied, words such as "obese", "husky", "chubby", "fat" or whatever my insensitive classmates chose to call me that day. In grade 8, I was punched in the stomach and slapped across my face, I remember it hurting so bad it was like a bag of bricks hitting me straight in my gut, so that night I went home and cried for hours and i’d look in the mirror and believe everything they were saying was true about me. My self confidence flew right out the window.

At barely 20 year's old, with a three year old daughter, I wanted to set a great example of health and confidence and being over weight wasn't the proper way to do that. I was insecure, self conscious and uncomfortable with my own body and standing in the mirror cringing wasn't something I wanted my daughter seeing. I had tried the diets and the gym, but it just didn't seem to be cutting it, I really needed the extra push. Something to really get me over and through the plateau it seemed like I had been stuck in for, forever.

I already had an extremely busy routine, maintaining a 3,7 GPA in college prep classwork, daily golf practice, volunteering through my school and my church, SAT / ACT prep. Add to that a very full tournament & travel schedule including at least 16 multi-day tournaments nationally. How would I find the time to get fit? After many excuses & false starts, in March 2016 I committed to making a change. I needed to be healthier, and needed to improve my physical fitness and stamina to continue to improve as an athlete. I began eating a low carb, high protein diet and going to the gym as a guest every day with two of my friends. I began to see changes in my body and health and became even more motivated by seeing the results from my hard work. It became easier to manage my studies and all my other activities around my commitment to health and fitness. I earned my own gym membership and began to work out every day, even during my travel to golf tournaments. This summer I traveled throughout Florida, to Alabama, Georgia, Arizona, and Tennessee for tournaments and

It is a familiar story: you commit to honor a daily elliptical routine and count every last calorie counter. But soon, you eats cupcakes at the office and packs happy hour mojitos, think oops, diet about.

Accepting that there was no way around succumbing to stay under 120 pounds, I’d give in to fighting to keep my weight down to fit into the skinny description that modeling called for, but I’d do it in the healthiest way possible by buckling down and setting a routine that incorporated exercise and a balanced diet into my daily life. So, I thought that I would try to allot my time after school toward going to the gym 3-5 times a week, this sometimes requiring me to skip out on hanging out with my friends. I then figured that if I could squeeze in at least 2 dance classes a week, I would accomplish fitting in my physical activity for the day while managing to keep up my skill in dance. Lastly, and maybe the hardest of all, I began to cut processed foods and unnecessary sugar out of my diet to see if I would notice any change in my body (bye-bye nightly desserts of cake, cookies, or

Growing up, I was always criticized about the extra weight I carried around with me. The negative remarks got into my head and one day I had enough; around the age of 12 I decided that I wanted to be “normal”. This led me to extreme diets and exercises and within a few months I was getting compliments. Little did I know, that the methods that I used to get rid of my fat, were not healthy approaches. I soon began to develop the opposite problem -- being too skinny -- and again, I was not happy with myself. When I got to high school, I saw all these physically fit athletes and made the conclusion that I had to imitate them if I wanted to look like them. First, I tried out for the soccer team. Every day, I would spend countless hours practicing

Everyday it is possible to open up an issue of “Men’s Fitness” or “Muscle and Fitness” or “Modern Woman” or “TIME” or any magazine for that matter, and find the “new and/or improved” way to lose weight, improve the quality of life, or extend your years working towards the other two goals. Almost all of the methods prescribed can work; some are exercise and some are diet. For the most part though, achieving diet or exercise goals requires one to have great discipline. It has been proven, by each of these diet deveopers, that the diets they prescribe will work if the individual will just manage his caloric intake.

When my family moved away from the place I grew up I began to have a major problem with my weight; I turned to food to comfort me. I somehow felt secure while eating and because of that psychological reassurance I got from the food, I was soon over weight. I knew I had to do something but that urgency would die when I would be introduced to a new flavor of Brewster’s ice cream or a limited time only supreme large fries that I saw advertised on the television or in a magazine. My self esteem and body-image suffered a great amount during those years of constant struggle. As I looked at pictures of celebrities, athletes, average people, friends, my sister and then myself, I noticed something, all of them were thin except me. After this and