I picked up a Seventeen magazine the other day for the first time in about fifteen years and, I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by what I found inside. Girls that looked like normal, pretty teenagers—not models. There were girls of all different shapes and colors. It was enlightening and refreshing.

I think if I had been reading THIS magazine (not the Seventeen I grew up with, covered with heroine-chic Kate Moss wanna-be’s) when I was a teenager, I may have had a different idea of myself. I was not a thin girl—never have been—but I wasn’t fat, either (not back then, anyway, but I did get there eventually). I sure as hell thought I was, though. And a few mean girls tended to agree with me and let me know it on a regular basis. The only images of beautiful I saw were staring at me from the page of the magazine through their sunken-in eyeballs. I would never be a size 2, so I thought that meant I wasn’t beautiful.

I’m so happy that someone has decided to promote a positive body image and tell people that it’s okay to embrace what’s beautiful about your body. To embrace being HEALTHY. On the other side of that is what I’ve dubbed, “the fat-acceptance movement”, which bothers me as much as the message that only thin is beautiful. Just as it’s not okay for someone to try to slim down to feather weight if that’s not what their body is, it’s not okay to tip the scales on the other side, either.

Just like it would be unhealthy of me to try to squeeze into a 6 or 4, it would be just as bad for me to tell people it was okay for me to wear a 16 or 18. That’s not a healthy size for me. I say this from experience. At my heaviest, I was a VERY unhealthy size 24, and at my thinnest, a size 10. I’ve since learned that a 10 is nearly impossible for me to maintain, so I’ve stuck at a 12…occasionally bouncing up to a 14 during holidays or on my period. And I have FINALLY come to accept this as HEALTHY and NORMAL. Not that I never have days where I hate everything from my neck down (that’s normal too!), but they have become fewer and further between. I hope that all of you can find that same place where you feel beautiful and comfortable and healthy, too. Lord knows it ain’t easy!