top of page

The "Skinny" on Being Skinny

  • Writer: Emelie Swonger
    Emelie Swonger
  • Jul 11, 2017
  • 3 min read

Two years ago, when my journey with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) first began (you can read more about my health journey here), my dance teacher approached me during class one day to ask me a rather disconcerting question: "Emelie, are you eating?" I nodded vigorously, thinking to myself, "Of course I'm eating. What kind of question is that?" I had heard the horror stories about dancers with eating disorders, but I quickly assured her I was not one of them.

Although I appreciated her concern, her attention to my lean figure made me self-conscious. I remember looking in the mirror for weeks after that, staring disdainfully at my bony wrists and shoulders... Squinting in the mirror looking for the hollows in my cheeks that she seemed so worried about.

I was indeed beginning to lose weight. Quite a significant amount, as a matter of fact. Over the course of just a few months, I lost nearly 25 pounds. When I began to struggle with IBS, my doctor advised me to try eliminating gluten, dairy, and soy from my diet. It became a daily challenge simply to find foods that I could eat. I was doing my best to eat well and respect my body, but what my concerned dance teacher failed to realize was that I would have given anything to eat like a normal teenager, without fear of how my diet was affecting my stomach.

Praise God that my mom and I have slowly mastered the art of Emelie-friendly cooking! These days I enjoy all manner of gluten and dairy-free concoctions. I have even started to re-gain the weight I lost and whenever I step on the scale I celebrate every single pound.

I think that so often we place the skinny girls in our lives on a pedestal. We look at them and see what our culture tells us we should look like: long legs, thin arms, and petite torsos resting on toned thighs. We envy them and we long to be them. Believe me, I've been there, too. I've looked at other girls and envied their bodies. I've eaten LESS in the hope that I would gain MORE, whether that be a leaner stomach or a sharper figure. I've held myself to a ridiculous standard of bodily perfection when my body was just right the way it was.

But once reality hit and I became one of the "skinny girls" I so admired, I realized that being skinny is not all it's cracked up to be. As the pounds fell off, I felt the stares and the worried glances. And while no one actually stated it upfront, I'm sure there were people in my life who feared I had an eating disorder. I actually found myself wanting to be a little heavier, to weigh a little more, to actually fit in my favorite pair of skinny jeans. I think sometimes we are so worried about being "skinny" that we fail to realize that even the "skinny" girls in our lives feel self-conscious about their weight.

Gradually I began to see the truth about body types."Skinny" is nothing more than a label. It's the label we give to the photoshopped girls in magazines and to the models straight from the runway. It's a label that has absolutely nothing to do with a woman's beauty or her worth as a human being. And the more we slap on labels, the more girls get hurt. It doesn't matter whether we're skinny or curvy, because let's just face it...we'll always want what we DON'T have. I know plenty of curvy girls who want to be skinny and I'm sure I'm not the only skinny girl who would love to have some more meat on her bones. That's the real and raw truth. And that's gotta change.

Let's start loving ourselves the way God created us to be... Whether that be skinny, curvy, or somewhere in between. Let's start celebrating the number of pounds on that scale (whatever that number may be), because each pound means we're ALIVE and GROWING and STRONG. Let's stop labeling the girls in our lives and let's start loving the girls in our lives... Every inch, every curve, and every bone in their body.

Comentarios


  • White Facebook Icon
  • White Instagram Icon
  • Pinterest - White Circle
  • White YouTube Icon

© 2016-2017 by Emelie Swonger. Proudly created with Wix.com

bottom of page