I think that all of the beauty standards from both America and Asia have affected me to some extent growing up, but the one thing that stuck with me the most were having thin, toned legs.

When I was in elementary school, I was totally find with myself. I ate whatever I wanted, didn’t gain weight nor fat anywhere, and was happy with myself. But the devil in disguised called puberty came at around middle school, and guess where those days of eating pizza, hot Cheetos, and sweet tea at school went? Yep, my legs.

I quickly became insecure of my butt, hips, thighs, and calves for being disproportionate in my eyes in comparison to the rest of my body. I hated the imbalance, and after I got into K-pop, where practically all of the female idols had stick-straight, thin, and long legs, I quickly got wrapped in my own dysphoria.

At seventh grade, I started dieting. I ate half of what I usually did, avoided snacks, and exercised so much more than normal because I wanted “pretty” legs. Believe it or not, my version of ideal legs were long, straight from the side profile from thigh to ankle, and a thigh gap. That was how obsessed I was, because it was so easy to do so for things that you don’t have.

I dreaded wearing skinny jeans because it defined my legs. And my self-esteem plummeted even more when I thought that other people could see it the way I did. One day, when I was in gym class in seventh grade, my gym teacher looked me up and down as I was about to get out of the locker room and asked, “Lift up the bottom of your pant leg.”

I did out of my confusion to reveal my bare ankles and calves. She nodded and said, “I thought that you were wearing pants under your sweatpants.” And to my seventh grade self, I translated this to: “Your legs looked bulky so I thought that you had pants under your gym pants. They can’t be your actual legs.” This was one of my first memories of being absolutely ashamed of my legs. I saw people in magazines with toned, skinny, long, and straight legs, and I looked at myself in the mirror only to hate myself more.

Looking back at it, I probably had body dysmorphoria, but as time went by, I learned to forget about it. It wasn’t something that was going change. That was me. I learned to live with things that made me unhappy, and funnily enough, time made me learn not to be unhappy anymore with my legs.

I’m pear-shaped and I’m not going to try to change it. To me, life as become a rollercoaster of loving your strengths and learning to accept your weaknesses, and even though having thin, toned, and straight legs were my ideal, it’s not me.

Cheers.

~K.T.