How Redefining 'Pretty' Helped Me Recover From Anorexia

The concept of “pretty” has puzzled me for some time. They say beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, and yet it seemed that somehow everyone had agreed on what it meant to be pretty.

I was led to believe that if one was pretty they would be successful, liked and most importantly, valued. I had been inundated all my life with these messages. I found myself comparing my physique to others despite being told all my life that having a mind of my own was more important. I subscribed to the idea of “pretty” that had been told to me so many times by so many people.

My self-worth was tied up in being the prettiest girl in the room. For me, that meant competing with every girl to be the thinnest. Every day was a battle to look better — to be better — than every girl in every room. I wanted my bones to wear my skin like a shirt a few sizes too small.

My search for beauty, or value rather, became tied up in numbers. As the number on the scale went down, my desire to be seen as pretty only grew. The mental calculator was always running. Counting calories. Measuring inches. Subtracting pounds. Calculating my self-worth. I was chasing after an unattainable goal, looking for my self-worth in the approval of others. However, my methods were working. Family, friends, and others would tell me I looked great — they liked the changes I was making to my appearance. Their compliments encouraged me and told me my ranking among others was improving.

Pretty meant loose shirts, thigh gaps, skipped meal, and a body breaking itself down. Pretty meant a brain that couldn’t focus on anything but the numbers that haunted me. Pretty meant a heart that couldn’t beat enough to keep me standing. The cost of “pretty” was an eating disorder and a mind plagued by the perceived judgments others were making about me. Pretty was thin and thin was value and value was worth. My self-worth could be measured in teaspoons.

What I thought was “pretty” was really an illness in disguise, a sickness dressed up in pretty clothes laced with compliments. While it may have provided me with the approval from others I thought I needed to feel worthy of life, anorexia left me a shell of the person I had once been. I was facing hard statistics, like how anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder. I realized my conception of what pretty was had to change.

Now I believe I am beautiful. My beauty comes not from a number on a scale or a ranking made by others or myself, but from my confidence in who I am and the strength I know I have inside of me.

The definition of pretty I held to be true is common, and it needs to change. In our weight-conscious culture, we must strive to expand and diversify what it means to be “pretty.” Through my process of recovery I have come to accept myself and now believe that all bodies are beautiful. That is not to say that I do not have days where my old ideas come to mind. On those days I must remind myself where I’ve been and how far I’ve come, but also that recovery is not a straight line. Healthy is the goal and that comes in many forms and looks different for everyone. Weight and size and calories are all just numbers that do not define us.

We, all of us, are pretty.

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, you can call the National Eating Disorders Association Helpline at 1-800-931-2237.

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Thinkstock photo via artant