Body Image & Health

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Are you obsessed with six-pack abs or the size of your butt? How much time and energy do you put into trying to look a certain way in order to feel happy? What does it cost you physically, emotionally and spiritually trying to attain the perfect look? Here are some of the challenges you can face when trying to get your body through the high school experience.

I probably felt most trapped in gym class. High school gym class consisted of the coach throwing out 3 basketballs and the classes of boys forming the “tall & talented” team, the “short-but-tries-hard” team, and the “we-don’t-even-remotely-care” team. The latter I barely fit into. Most of the time I spent sitting on the sidelines waiting for the period to end.
—Joel, 21

My first encounter with Anorexia came way before high school. The first time I restricted (stopped eating), I was 13. I was a chubby kid in elementary school and I was taller than everyone in my class was, so I was totally self-conscious about being “fat.” When I started junior high school it was a culture shock—I went from this tiny little school to this huge place where I didn’t know anyone and I felt like a complete dork. I had never smoked a cigarette, kissed a boy, had a drink, gone to a concert or watched R-rated movies. And those things were fine with me. But in junior high, if you haven’t done those things, you don’t really want to tell people that. So I threw myself into the very daunting task of fitting in. First on the list—lose weight, get a haircut, get contact lenses.
Pretty simple, except that didn’t help me feel like I fit in. But I realized that I liked the compliments that came with losing weight. People started telling me that I looked good. Even my family gave me compliments. So I just kept going with it. I liked how it made me feel—and it gave me something to focus on outside of how much I felt like I didn’t fit in at school. It made me feel like I was good at something.
By the time I started high school I thought I was pretty normal. I did well in school so I ended up in honors and AP classes, so I didn’t feel out of place in class because there were always people who were bigger nerds than I was. I didn’t have to feel guilty for knowing the answers or looking like a brown-noser. At the time, I was dealing with some other pretty stressful things. There was a guy from school who was stalking me, my parents were at each others throats, I was starting to think about college, and after years of not being true to who I was it was catching up to me—I was miserable. I started bingeing and purging as a way to block out how much I was hurting. When I was in the middle of a binge, nothing else mattered. I was totally focused on the food—how it tasted, how much I just wanted to be full. I wasn’t thinking about anything else. I eventually stopped bingeing, and I got to the point where I was throwing up everything that I ate. After a couple of months I had lost a lot of weight and I was having chronic strep throat.
I kept getting sick. My doctor knew that something was up, and told me that I had to come see her for weekly visits so that she could monitor me until they could figure out what was going on. Whenever I went to see her she would ask me if I was ok, if there was something else going on that I hadn’t told her about. But I kept insisting that nothing was wrong. She started sending me for bloodwork. One afternoon she called my mom and told her to bring me in immediately. While we were in the office, she told me that I had an electrolyte imbalance and I could have a heart attack. She wanted to admit me to the hospital that afternoon. Then she begged me to tell her what was going on.
I finally told her everything. That I couldn’t stop because it was too hard to stop now. That I was scared and I hated feeling sick. It didn’t feel good anymore. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally.
—Arianna, 22

I don’t like the way I have to wake up so early to go to school… I get like no sleep and I fall asleep in class and get yelled at!
–Jason, 15

I don’t understand the point of waking up at the crack of dawn to get to a class that I don’t even like.
–Anthony, 15

Our gym classes are set up for kids who are already good in gym. The rest of us hate it. I hate being forced to play games I can’t play, climb ropes I can’t climb and run farther than I can run. I hate being picked last for teams. I spend a lot of time looking for ways to get out of class and P.E. is the only class I’ve ever cut. I know I need more exercise, but wouldn’t be so wigged out if they would give us stuff I could actually do.
—Cookie, 16

I am as unique and special and there is only one of me in the world so I have no reason to alter myself to fit the world’s view of the perfect person.
—Katie, 18

*indicates material that was submitted anonymously

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