Her Reasoning

After the doctor told us what was wrong with my sister, we were all worried about what would happen to her. The doctor explained that she was going to be okay but they needed to keep her in the hospital for a couple of days to monitor her health and to make sure she hadn't caused any long term damage. We were so happy she was okay but the first question that popped into our heads was "Why?" Why would she do this to herself? She is beautiful and always has been so it never made any sense to us why she would do this. The doctor told us we were allowed to go in and see her and we didn't know if we should run and hug her and be happy that she is alright or if we should yell at her for doing something crazy like that. We all had so many emotions at that point. When we walked in, we were all crying. My sister looked so weak and vulnerable. I never thought I would see her like that. She didn't even let us say anything; she just started to explain herself. She told us that she was upset because someone in school had made a comment about how they thought she was "getting fat." After that comment was made, she began to notice all the other skinny girls that she saw in school that she believed were so much prettier than her. Then, she began to notice how every magazine cover had a skinny, gorgeous girl on the cover and every television commercial that used skinny, attractive models to show off their products. I couldn't believe what my sister was saying. She was never one to let anyone control the way she feels about herself. So, I was surprised at what she was saying. She told us that what she was doing just started as her skipping one meal a day so she could lose a little bit of weight but once she saw the results, she liked how she was starting to look. This caused her problem to escalate. She soon began working out more and then at some point she just stopped eating all together. She was doing this to herself for a little over a month and none of us had noticed. I was so mad that I couldn't see what was happening to my baby sister right under my nose. I never thought that the way the media portrays women would cause my sister to harm herself.