I recently wrote a post about body image. I wrote it not to attract traffic, to say wonderful things about myself or to beg other people to say nice things about me. I said it because it’s something I literally think about every day of my life. I think about what the scale said that morning or how eating these crackers are going to make me feel later. It’s something I’ve been doing for a very long time, since puberty, and it’s a very large and sensitive topic.

A sensitive topic we’re going to get in to here.

A  while back I confessed to having an eating disorder in college. Oh, who are we kidding? Most people had an eating disorder in college. Except they didn’t. None of my roommates felt about food the way I did. None of them counted calories or exercised to ease guilt. But we all struggled in our own way.

I’m sure we can all relate on some level.

There are a lot of wonderful resources on this topic: Women’s Health, Science Daily, even our very own Blogher. But the most resourceful avenue we have is each other. We can talk about it. We can laugh about it. We can look in the mirror and jiggle our muffin tops and beat the media. We can write letters. We can refuse products made for the sickly thin. We can take action.

But by far, the most important thing we can do is love ourselves for the next generation of little girls learning by watching us step on the scale. Maybe then, in another ten years, there will be a better message in the media as our children grow up surrounded by fitness and health.

This post also appears in Mrs. Flinger’s Fitness column on Blissfully Domestic. Contribute in our forums and be a part of a movement toward a healthier generation.