Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? 

Could it be the pure little girl who finds comfort and excitement in little snacks? 

Or is it the heavy thoughts that weigh an extra 30-lbs, leaving a stain on the scale?

There’s a picture of me sleeping, hearted in my mom’s photo album.

Wake up, Snow White, you should lose more weight. 

Asian-bob haircut and a bright blue and yellow tunic. 

Within me, my favorite Snow White still slumbers.

I’ll admit to being the evil queen, feeding her poison— but it was all in good intentions to distract her from the nightmare of how I grew up to be. 

As a little girl, I had felt guilty to think of what life would be like when I turned fourteen. I knew that my mindset had always been to believe my future would be better than my now. 

I worried that I was not appreciating what was in front of me enough.

(How do you end up making this innocent sentence sound so sad?)

A mirror. 

Happy 14th! What did you wish for? 

1. Lose weight
2. To be skinnier

I wonder how Snow White would react if she knew I had pushed away the adrenaline to rush downstairs for lunch– instead feeding the empty craving of summer with the “better” versions of myself in my head. 

“Why did you skip mom’s dinner? Don’t you wanna grow taller?” 

Are you satisfied now? 

I couldn’t bear the disappointed look from little Snow White if she found out that I stopped eating her treasured chocolate strawberries – being fulfilled with the new discovered comfort food: starvation. 

I’m hungry

I’ve been hungry

I’m born hungry

What do I need? 

God–I knew the apple was soaked in the bittersweet caramel of never-ending self-hatred, polished and painted in this talented, overly obsessive red, but someone had to do the job and tell me I had to lose a few. 

Skinny

Skinny Adjective (THIN)

*Mainly disapproving 

Very thin:

1. You should eat more– you’re too skinny
2. My favorite silhouette is big shoulders and skinny legs. 

— Add to word list?

I will come clean to tell you that I found satisfaction in pity comments. 

Such words as: “You look sick” or “Are you okay? You’ve lost so much weight?” kept me motivated, like signing an armistice in my sort of inner World War 3 against human nature.

If I had known this mindset was going to cost me this much–maybe, just maybe I would consider seeing things differently, but everything seemed to work better when I was starving. 

Woman Points Out Examples Of  Thin Privilege After Losing 160 Pounds, And Other Women Are Agreeing With Her 

It doesn’t make sense now, but happiness was much more achievable when I lost my period for three months. January, February, March. 

It was almost like I finally started to see myself worthy, when I solved the math equation realizing my mistake was forgetting to add the minus sign. 

My positive beginnings were instead found behind the walls of my classroom: 

“I have no idea what she’s saying; it’s almost like my brain can’t process words.” 

“Well, did you eat breakfast?”

Yes, I did eat breakfast. Maybe that was why I was not okay. 

I only found bliss knowing that I was mastering self-control, or simplified in a  less appetizing way – stopping my body’s voice. 

But I am not here to tell you how I used to starve myself. In fact, I see it so commonly that writing about this feels very–overdone. 

It’s like that one paragraph in your textbook that you just couldn’t get to stick to your brain. 

Reading the same words over a thousand times yet you could not even picture the headings when the big question came. 

All blank.

Space left filled

with what seems to be the

only fit. 

Finally being able to squeeze into enough and nothing at all!

Almost as if everybody whispers their answer but no one can truly trust who is right. 

• “Is it bad that my worst fear in the world is to look like my grandma? Like I can’t imagine myself, ever, being an overweight granny that

makes cookies.” 

• “For me, it depends if my husband is dead or not.” 

What freaked me out the most while writing this was our age. 

I mean, I was thirteen, and I was literally in 8th grade. 

In fact everybody (8th grade or younger) was starting new dieting trends in school that I felt like it was hard to keep up with. 

Lunch Table Manners: 

• Chew with your mouth closed
• Clean up after yourself
• Make sure all the dishes (if you did pick up a plate) are put back
• The phrase “I’m just going to throw this up later,” is banned… 

And even if I did pick up lunch, I felt judged, getting glares from girls who had nothing in front of them. What if I never reached my goal? 

Goal

Noun: goal; plural: goals

1. She has a goal to be okay with what her body looks like. 
2. In this sentence, “her goal” is the subject, and “is to be okay with what her body looks like” is the predicate. 
3. This sentence conveys her commitment to achieving acceptance of her body’s appearance. 
4. Her goal is to have a skinnier figure. 
5. Hating yourself is the fastest way to lose weight. 

The school counselor called my mom at 10pm on a Tuesday night. Without an English voice of her own, I translated calls that came through from school. I am very experienced, but I got cooked (pun intended) when: 

Google Search History: 

Intermittent fasting calculator 

How to lose fat in your things

How do you translate to your mom, who has sacrificed her life to move you to a better place, that you have been caught searching up self-harm related content on your school Chromebook? 

Directions for how to end up in the counselor's office the next morning just for her to tell you: your weight is normal. (?)

1. Resist temptations to food
2. Come back home and eat a WHOLE box of frosted flakes
3. Feel guilty and start crying in the shower
4. Vent about everything in a google doc
5. Get caught with your ranting because you’re so silly and forgot to switch out of the school’s Google account 
6. Translate urgent call from school to Mom 
7. Hear an announcement to the whole school that the counselor wants to meet you through the school speaker 
8. Watch while counselor pulls out a BMI chart. (It doesn’t feel normal when I look at myself in the mirror) 

Weight Loss With Coconut Water: Know How It Helps To Shed Kilos

It must be abnormal for a middle school to be filled with such high-beauty expectations, right? I apologize for neglecting to update you on the fact that I just graduated from a very prestigious private middle school where girls there come from rich Asian families and supermodel moms. My peers were extremely beautiful, and there was always this silent pressure–at least for me- to look like them. But one thing you should know about Asian-beauty standards is the obsession with being skinny; being underweight was the new normal.

(Loot Box) Conversations in my girl’s locker room: 

A. Girls supporting Girls 1 (Common box)

“I’m so fat. Look at my arms.”

“Are you kidding me? You have such gorgeous arms!” 

“No, are you blind? They’re so flappy.” 

B. It’s Always about Boys (Uncommon box)

“You can’t starve like that. It’s so bad for you.” (Wish I was as cool as her)

“No, I need to lose at least 15 pounds by next week.”

“Does this have to do with Jacob? You can tell me.”

“I don’t know; he did say I’d be much prettier if I lost weight. And he’d officially make our relationship public if I ran a few laps.” 

 C. Girls supporting Girls 2 (Rare box)

“I don’t have energy for sports. I didn’t eat lunch.”

“It’s okay, that means we’ll burn even more calories for the summer.” 

“No, you don’t understand, I can’t even walk.” 

“It’s just in your head.” 

With the majority population of my classmates being Asians, I would eventually see our obsession of weight loss influence the self-worth of my American classmates too. It was contagious. 

“Look at her waist– I would die to have her body.” My best friend said it so much that whenever I noticed any girl’s waist, I heard her voice in the back of my head. 

“How can she stay so effort-less-ly skinny?” 

The corner of my eyes flicker. 

The liveliness of the dining hall dries out.

Eating

Swallowing

Eating

Swallowing

So carefree. How do they manage? 

Tips for being healthy: money. 

My best friend came from a lower-income family. And I had only realized it when I saw the inside of her family’s fridge, and it made me reflect on the differences between our situations. 

Her fridge: microwavable frozen food. Leftovers. Mcdonalds’. 

Why is healthy food so expensive in America? Blame the Farm Bill that Congress always renews to make burgers cheaper than salad

Picture this: you’re very late to your 9-5. You’re starving! So you rush to your local fast food chain to grab a quick breakfast on the go. You work all day, pushing through exhaustion, your eyelids closing, and finally come back home to rest. You’re tired and you’re drained, so you microwave your dinner. Maybe you have some chips as well since they’re affordable, and at least they can bring you a brief moment of enjoyment. You sit alone, surrounded by the sounds of the microwave humming. You turn on the TV to watch depressing news, feeling another day has been lost; you recognize that you had spent your whole day waiting for this moment– only to have no energy to take care of yourself. 

A vicious cycle.

As a result, my best friend stopped eating altogether. Days, I repeat, without nibbling on anything. Her parents avoided confrontation and I felt too afraid to lose her by intervening. That’s when my best friend's actions began to affect me deeply. 

I couldn’t understand it then, but I was also slowly losing myself. Something triggered in me when I was eating and saw that she wasn’t. 

Was it the urge to improve? 

Fuel for your body? 

No! Why do I need fuel if I have so much unnecessary energy stored around my thighs? 

Haven’t you heard? It is very unacceptable for girls to be above average in weight. Even after childbirth, aging and whatever, girls should always stay skinny and petite. If not–you're unattractive, therefore you won’t be respected and accepted as much in any situation.

The Archer Song by Taylor Swift

I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost

The room is on fire, invisible smoke

And all of my heroes die all alone

Help me hold onto you

I've been the archer

I've been the prey

Screaming, who could ever leave me, darling?

But who could stay?

(I see right through me, I see right through me)

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?