For girls, our teenage years are the hardest. We have our hormones raging to be set free. We want to rebel and curse from car windows, we long to watch Disney movies on a cold rainy day. We desire to be very feminine, wearing make-up and dresses, in a matter of minutes. We can’t stand the feeling of never feeling good enough if somebody says something negative.

One word can shake our fragile bodies to the ground and make us feel like we don’t belong. No matter the attitude, body type or facial features, we’re all the same. All girls are beautiful, powerful, united. Nobody should be able to shake the ground we walk on because girls will and always fight back with a harder, faster, better punch of energy and spunk. However one word, any word can tear us down and makes us feel like we don’t matter to anybody.

For us, those awkward stages of our lives are so crucial. We make horrible choices because of how boys and girls view us. We couldn’t talk to our crush without blushing or hoping that one day we would get married. We fell for silly cliches in movies. We start wearing make-up at age 12 because we thought it would make us look prettier.

Hearing simple words can bring me to a sudden halt and ruin my day. I fall into a cycle of self esteem and doubt about myself. One moment I’ll feel great about myself and believe that I’m beautiful then I would notice that my stomach doesn’t look right, neither do my legs, my thighs, my chest, my arms.. Only because somebody call a girl, who I believe is prettier than me, fat.

This cycle of negative self esteem needs to stop. There shouldn’t be a reason that eating disorders, OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and body dysmorphia are a trend. There is nothing attractive about having your bones being noticeable because you’ve been skipping the last week of meals. Everybody can smell the breakfast you just had coming from the bathroom stalls. There is no reason to have to strive for perfection when you’re already beautiful.

You log onto Tumblr and the first few posts you see are thin girls taking selfies with a visible thigh gap with a man giving her a hug we long for. We start to feel jealous and ashamed that there isn’t a gap between our healthy thighs or that we don’t have a muscular man in our lives to make us feel beautiful like how the Tumblr girl does. That’s when girls get self conscience about everything they do.

I’m seventeen. I’m about 5’3” and I know for a fact that I don’t weigh 130 lbs. The media says I’m fat and obese when in reality, my health is doing perfectly fine. I don’t have perfect natural hair or soft clear skin. I get weird looks for wearing a dress, I get even more looks if I walk out of the house in track shorts and a sweater.