Society's Standards Or Your Standards?

If you turn on the television or flip through many magazines you can find yourself thinking that you are not thin enough or pretty enough. These are all based on society's standards for beauty. I will admit that at one point in my life I almost fell victim to this. I wondered if my body was ugly according to society. I work in the health care field and I've been seeing more and more girl's between the ages of 13-15 being diagnosed with anorexia. It's so incredibly sad that our youth does not have the confidence to be comfortable in their own body. I had the opportunity to talk to one of these girls and she told me that the reason she exercised non-stop and cut her calories is because she doesn't look like a model. She started pointing out parts on her body that she wasn't happy with and where she saw fat, I saw skin. It broke my heart that she couldn't see what she was doing to her body and her health. She was bradycardic and malnourished, but here she was standing in the mirror and she saw herself as ugly and fat. Something has to be done about this. It's time for us to teach our youth that being healthy is most important. Their bodies are still growing and the damage that they are doing to them now, can last a lifetime. It becomes not only a physical illness, but a mental illness that can and probably will follow them for a lifetime.  It's time for us all to stop trying to live up to society's standards and start living up to our own.