As a child, my parents put me in so many athletic activities I can’t even count them on my fingers. I really enjoyed them. I would play soccer, tennis, swim, dance, gymnastics, ballet, and rock climbing all throughout my elementary and middle school years.

Physically, I felt so good. I was in really good shape and eating healthy. It wasn’t until the age of 12 that I started noticing changes in my body, looking at my own stomach in the mirror and wondering why my body was changing. I was still pretty active until COVID hit and school was online. During this period I gained over 50 pounds and often felt insecure because I was no longer active like I used to be.

In 2021 when we went to school physically, even though my friends wouldn’t make direct comments at my weight, they would make comments like “you look so different” and so on. I felt severely insecure about my body and how I looked and felt really ashamed of myself.

While reading “Pretty Ugly, The Politics of Desire”, there was one quote: “We all run from the ugly. And the farther we run from it the more power we give beauty”. This stuck out to me because starting my senior year, I lost about half the weight I gained during COVID. I also began to wear makeup and wear better clothes to try to make myself look prettier. It did work, because people spoke to me more, treated me better, and I was getting less backhanded compliments. Inside I still felt horrible, because why couldn’t I have been treated like that when I wasn’t as “pretty”? I just feel like society places too much value on appearance.