if you want the truth about weight loss, listen up:  
WEIGHT IS NOT EQUIVALENT TO BEAUTY.





somewhere there’s a young girl
hunched over a toilet bowl,
***** dripping down her chin.
her mascara has been smudged by her tears.

is that beautiful to you?



somewhere there’s a young boy
hating himself because
he doesn’t look like the models
he sees in magazines.
his skin is covered in self-harm scars,
byproducts of the toxicity he sees every day.

is that beautiful to you?



somewhere there’s another young girl
who has turned herself into a walking skeleton.
she’s so skinny that her body
stopped menstruating a long time ago
just to keep her alive.

somehow, she still gets pregnant.
she’s so happy about this pregnancy.
she has something to live for now.

and then the doctor comes in
and tells her that she can’t have her baby.
she is too skinny to bring
that pregnancy to full-term.
if she tried, her baby would die,
and so would she.

she has an abortion.
she holds her friend’s hand
in the waiting room.
this isn’t a close friend,
but she had no one else to call.
she is terrified.

a few weeks later,
she is dead.
she finally gave up.

a 19-year-old girl
is buried in the same ground that
would have held both her and her baby.

a 19-year-old girl
is buried in the same earth
that she should still
be walking on today.

is that beautiful to you?





there are children soaking juice
into cotton ***** and ******* on them
to distract themselves from their hunger.

there are men and women in hospitals
with G-tubes protruding from their noses,
being force-fed whatever life
they have left.

there are students passing out
from pure starvation
when they try to stand up
to leave their classrooms.





and all of those stories?

the girl by the toilet,
the boy with the scarred skin,
the girl who didn’t live past 19?

those aren’t just stories. they’re real.
they are people I know,
or I guess I should say
they are people I once knew.





I was the friend in that waiting room.
I was one of the last people to see that girl alive.
I was one of the last people to hear her voice.

I have had to hold my friends’ hair back
while they throw up everything
in their stomachs.

there are entire nights that I have spent awake
watching my friends to ensure that
they didn’t end their own lives that night.

at such a young age,
I have witnessed more pain
than some of you could even imagine.
and I am far from the only one.



*

if you still can’t understand this,
I’ll simplify it for you:

WEIGHT IS NOT EQUIVALENT TO BEAUTY.

WEIGHT IS NOT EQUIVALENT TO HEALTH.

THE NUMBER ON A SCALE
DOES NOT LESSEN A PERSON’S VALUE.

WEIGHT IS NOT SOMETHING
THAT DEFINES WHO A PERSON IS.

WEIGHT IS PORTRAYED UNREALISTICALLY.

THE GOALS YOU ARE REACHING FOR
MAY NOT EVEN BE REAL.

“PERFECT” BODIES DON’T EXIST.

SOMEONE’S WEIGHT LOSS OR LACK THEREOF
IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS. AT ALL.

and most importantly,

WEIGHT LOSS
SHOULD NEVER
BE A DEATH SENTENCE.