Thinner.

I have struggled with food my whole life.

When I was little, I didn't want to have anything to do with it. It was more of a nuisance that interrupted the time I would rather spend playing.

As a pre-teen I abused it and found comfort in it, mistakenly thinking I could fill the empty places in my heart with another bite.

My junior year in High School, I walked away from it and found power in turning my back on the calories and embraced the solace in running.

But I often didn't know what I was running from.

Or to.

In college, I mistakenly followed what I jokingly called the "Sorority Girl Diet," eliminating fat but eating my fill of jelly beans and bagels and ensuring that beer was part of the regimen (at least from Thursday - Saturday nights).

I would like to say I found my way in my 20's.

But as I sit here in my 30's, with two impressionable children who I have the power to influence, I realize I am just as messed up today in how I view food as I was in my teens. Not much has changed.

I can't remember a day when I thought I was "thin enough." Even as I look back at pictures of myself when I was my fittest, I try to remember what was going through my head at the time the pictures were snapped.

Not good enough.

Not pretty enough.

Not thin enough.

Ever.

My husband asks me to acknowledge this strange relationship I have with food. Perhaps he didn't want me to write it on this blog, but oh what the heck. It's hard to admit to crazy, but I can truly say that when it comes to food, I have always been a nutjob. Completely.

Utterly.

I sometimes feel shame that as someone who has seen poverty first hand, in such extreme circumstances in the villages of India, that I would reject or abuse what so many people don't have access to and are literally starving for.

I bought a magazine at the store the other day. Like a junkie being pulled in by a vial of coke, I found myself adding it to my cart.

"Starving to Be Sexy" the cover said, showing images of celebrities who have fought their battles against any body fat and appear to be successful, flaunting clavicles, pelvic bones and ribcages that defy any unwanted calorie to even try to slip by.

"Isn't this crazy?" I showed the magazine to my niece when she came to visit me.

"Yeah, but it's what people expect. Of course they feel the need to be thin."

As I found myself being drawn back to the magazine, I realized that it's not so much that I think those celebrities are crazy. The rational part of me does, of course.

But there is also this part of me that relates to them. And where I have never been able to get "thin enough," these celebrities have.

And it made me jealous.

How does this happen? I ask.

I think of myself as intelligent (reasonably). Not vapid (most of the times). Rational (cyclically).

The irony of one of the images actually made me laugh. One of the celebrities on the "Starving to Be Sexy Cover," is reality show actress, Audrina Patridge. Wearing the same bikini that she recently wore on this month's cover of Shape Magazine, a fitness magazine. One of the other celebrities touted as "too skinny," Leann Rimes, just appeared on the cover of Shape Magazine, perhaps five or six months ago.

So let me get this straight. On the one hand, we look at these images and are being told that these women have gone to an unhealthy extreme. At the same time, we will see these same women highlighted on covers of purported "health" magazines.

It's confusing, right?

I realize that the things I say glibly around the house are making an impression on my daughter. And that I need to ensure she doesn't have this same messed up relationship with food that I feel like I have had.

So I try not to say things. I try not to show her just how preoccupied I am with food labels or show her any of my insecurities I feel when I look in the mirror.

And I hope she never goes through these mindless cycles that I have gone through.

Self-loathing when I "cheat."

Hunger when I punish myself for not being strong enough.

Judgement when the scale taunts me with a number I want to deduct another 10 pounds from.

Or maybe even 15.

I am writing this post to say that I am one of many women who is too hard on herself. Too quick to judge myself. Too quick to punish myself. Insecure enough to buy in to the images that are telling me what society values in women.

But one thing I am NOT is a woman who plans to keep her subscription to Shape Magazine.

After years of trying to embrace healthy, I think that it's time to acknowledge what "healthy" really means. And its not about the photoshopped celebrity on the cover.

It's about acceptance.

XOXO,

Kiran