Melissa A. Fabello

What I’ve (amazingly) learned is that if I eat what I want, when I want, and as much of it as I want (what my stomach wants, not my eyes, which are two separate measurements), my digestion regulates itself again.

Street harassment. Eating disorders. Rape — three times, including one storyline that involved Zoe being sexually violated at a party by two star athletes who filmed the assault and distributed the video online. Intimate partner violence. Sexist school dress codes. Police brutality and racial profiling. Islamophobia. Sexting and child pornography.

"Because diet culture is so ingrained in our society, and therefore our psyches, a common misconception about eating disorders – and particularly those of the restricting and purging varieties – is that they’re choices that people make with the end goal of losing weight."

I was jealous of the dog. “That dog gets to be so thin,” I tried to explain, tearfully, to my partner, “and it doesn’t even have to try. I’ll never be that thin.”

And so I slid the scale to the back of my closet, started freely eating doughnuts when I craved doughnuts, and simply donated the jeans that stopped fitting instead of holding out hope for them.

The list on the board filled up with words like “ambitious,” “curious,” “intelligent,” and “dedicated.” And as my professor was wrapping up the activity, I sighed and raised my hand.

". . . guess what! Despite, again, what the media tells you, breasts come in a huge variety of shapes! Most natural breasts are affected by gravity and seem to sag a little bit, rather than perking up like they might in a bra. Most nipples fall downward (so, ya know, potential babies can reach them), rather than face forward."

It might take years before you can hold a cupcake in your hand and not nearly have a panic attack.

And it’s that last one that really irks me: that most people — and especially most women’s — new year’s resolutions center on dieting and weight loss as the key to happiness.