As a young girl, I would always stuff my bra to see what I’d look like with bigger breasts. I was around 9 at the time and my lady lumps were nowhere in sight. Oh, but when 13 came around, I got real lucky; My breasts appeared out of nowhere. It was like I went […]
It usually starts with widened eyes and a slight lift of the eyebrows. As I walk over to greet a new student, they slowly stick out their hand to meet mine. “Hi, I’m Anna. I’m so glad you’re here!” “Hi,” they say back. “You’re the … teacher?” Most of the time when people come to […]
When I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to have a full-length mirror in my room. My Jewish mother loathed hearing me complain about how fat I was and refused to invest in one. I never made the purchase for myself until I was a freshman in college—and even then my mom questioned whether or […]
The other day, I was having lunch with a 65-year-old woman who was on a strict diet. She told me she needed to lose 10 pounds before she would feel like a real person again. She wasn’t letting herself buy any new clothes until she dropped a couple sizes. She loved fashion, but she wanted […]
Writing about body love and acceptance? That’s my jam. Teaching women to embrace their supposed “flaws,” accept that physical beauty comes in infinite forms, and learn to love their own bodies just as they are? My life’s quest. So it is with great trepidation that I reveal the following: I really dislike being naked. I mean, if […]
Nobody, not even Miranda Kerr or Gisele Bundchen, loves every single inch of what their body looks like naked. Why is that? The saddest thing in the world is that we all get our ideas about what the naked human form “should” look like from Photoshopped, expertly lit, heavily made-up images that aren’t even close to real. And then when […]
Doctors in the UK are identifying a condition called muscle dysmorphic disorder, nicknamed “bigorexia” – an obsession some men have with becoming more muscular, bigger, and closer to an ideal “V” shape. It’s thought that 1 in 10 gymgoers might have the condition, which on its most extreme end has led some men to life-ending steroid […]
The other day, a girl emailed me: “I’m worried that I’m not pretty enough to get a guy. I’m single, and want a serious relationship, but sometimes I think I can’t find one because I’m not prettier.” I wanted to exclaim, “That’s ridiculous!” But instead I thought, Well, of course you’re worried. When I was single, […]
Sitting in the sports medicine clinic’s waiting room, I poked at my knee and winced, hoping that the doctor would be able to fix my troubled joints so I could run my first road race the following month. Half an hour later, I had my answer: my biomechanics were off, I suffered from the common […]
