Hi guys. I wanted to share this blog post because this evening something... kind of amazing happened to me, and I wanted to share it because I want you guys to experience it, too. It's to do with weight and body image, so if topics surrounding those things upset you, maybe it is best you don't read on - however, this post will end on a positive note, and has a message that I find to be important.

As someone who has suffered from an eating disorder, my weight has been many sizes. At my slimmest, a UK size 4 hung off of me and I was forced into shopping at kid's sections to get something to fit. My health deteriorated to the stage I almost lost my life - but now I am weight restored, and my mentality is so far from what it was in terms of food and eating that I find it hard to believe I was ever at that critical point; however, that said, I do still have days - as we all do - where I doubt my self-image, my appearance, my weight. For a long time, I lived with the ideal that an unhealthy BMI was beautiful - that to be the smallest I could be was the most attractive thing for my body. Thigh gaps and gaunt cheekbones, bony shoulders and exposed collerbones - all of those things were the hallmarks of beauty in my mind, and things I sought to obtain. I got them, I got all of them, but never once did I think I was beautiful.

Now at my healthy weight (a healthy BMI), I keep thinking back to the days I was underweight through rose-tinted glasses; partly, I think this is due to the fact I have once again turned back to kpop - a dangerous obsession in the past given the extremely low and unhealthy weights of many idols. It is so easy to begin to idolise these weights and images again without truly appreciating just how skinny the idols themselves actually are. To use a popular group as an example, certain members of BLACKPINK - who, don't get me wrong, are four extraordinarily beautiful women and would be at any weight - are said to have BMIs in the 15s (this is severely underweight). If we were to see them in public, they would be a lot skinnier than they appear on camera or in photos. Whilst all bodies are different, I know I was practically skeletal at that weight. One of the differences however with BLACKPINK and with us is that they most likely have trainers and dieticians to help them maintain their physiques - that or a willpower inspired by their jobs, a dangerous willpower that is unhealthy for them. I think BLACKPINK are a very talented group and I hold nothing against them, they're beautiful and their comeback was amazing, they're just an example of how incredibly difficult beauty standards can be. Anyway, that was somewhat tangential, so I want to return to my point.

I keep thinking back to my weight, what it once was, as being ideal. That body, wherein I could fit into anything - that was ideal. I was saddened this evening and decided to try on some of the clothes I had bought in the midst of my eating disorder - ones I had purchased as I just slipped into a BMI of about 16 - and tried them on by a mirror. Of course, what I saw was that those clothes didn't fit. I wasn't surprised, but I was numb, in a sense. That body I once had, I thought, and lost due to a lack of self control (note: due to determination to make it through recovery, more like), now gone. I went back to my room then, but instead of simply succumbing to those thoughts, I did what I have been taught to do and I challenged them. I went to my wardrobe and found a top I had bought a few months back, though had never got the opportunity to wear. The wrap-around top itself had a deep v-neck, long sleeves that became flared at the elbows, with a black background and pink floral pattern. In other words, it was a top designed to be the perfect harmony of sophisticated and y (a look I can try now, since I am eighteen...). I went back to the mirror and tried this top on, and literally everything changed.

I am not a confident person in my appearance, and have never once been impressed by how I looked - but this evening, I was. I noticed now that I had feminine curves that I had never had in my eating disorder - I looked like a woman, not a child. The top suited my figure perfectly and made me so much more attractive than I had ever been in my eating disorder; back then, I was pale, stick-thin, no curves, bones jutting out and legs like matchsticks - now, I am healthy, still slender but within a healthy boundary, and I looked so, so good in that top. It made me think - girl, you have ing got this, and that I could go out and act more confident because in that outfit, at my healthy weight, with my healthy mind, I looked amazing. With a mind that wasn't biased, I decided I looked so much better in that top than I had ever done in my eating disorder clothes, the things that hung off of me because they had no figure to hug. What's more, it isn't just that this body is more beautiful, but it lets me do more, too; I can run and sing and dance and write and party and drink and eat and do whatever the hell I want, so... Isn't it a win-win?

Please, guys, next time you want to compare yourself to anybody you percieve as "skinnier" - don't. Look at yourself, dress in what makes you feel good, what shows off who you are and not what you want to be. I am so sickened by the unachievable beauty standards that make men and women alike strive for dangerous ideals; to be so skinny, like many of our idols, we're risking osteoporosis, infertility, heart problems, brain damage... At any weight below a healthy BMI, these are tangible risks. We're reaching for this yet simultaneoulsy the healthy body, the one humans were biologically programmed to have, is beautiful and beneficial in its own right, more-so than a body of bones. When I was underweight, being was looking like a skeleton draped in skin; it was not attractive, it was not right. Now, I look so much better - even my hair has life to it, my cheeks glow, my eyes light up... There's so much more to me, and for the first time in my life I can say that I looked at myself and thought- yeah, I'm hot xD When I was 75lbs and couldn't walk a staircase, that wasn't what I was saying.

Love your body, love yourself, dress for who you are and not for unattainable goals. Don't try reach something that could destroy your health - just embrace yourself, give yourself a break and appreciate the body you have. Please, I swear to God it's worth it. Thanks for reading <3

-Emma