You’re either a Lara Flynn Boyle or a Camryn Manheim, and I’m neither of those. I used to relate to Kate Winslet and Christina Ricci, but both of them have caved to industry pressure and lost a /lot/ of weight. I thought Renée Zellweger looked wonderful with those extra few pounds she put on for Bridget Jones’s Diary, but all the film industry could do was snipe about how fat she was (even though she only went up to what, a size 6?), and once she took the weight back OFF (plus some extra, it seemed) I thought she looked terrible. There’s no one in the middle ground. You’re either the token fat actor or you’re one of the beautiful people. I think [my body image has] gotten progressively worse as I’ve gotten older. I keep gaining weight, and the more I put on the less I like my body. I’ve tried every type of exercise and diet known to man, and nothing except starving myself seems to work. With every piercing and tattoo my body becomes slightly more my own – but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I like it any more. Now that I’m single again, for the first time in so long, there is so much extra pressure to make my body beautiful – my boyfriend may have loved my body, but now he’s gone. If I want to find someone else, I’d better get myself as close to that ideal as possible, or I’m going to spend the rest of my life alone. I only get really motivated to change my body during the times when I hate it most. -- Alicia Barta, Seattle

My “biological father,” as I now call him, wouldn’t touch me after I started developing. He said it made him uncomfortable. There was one time specifically, in fifth or sixth grade that I asked him for a hug, and he wouldn’t touch me. He then told me why. I felt dirty, disgusting, and completely ugly and undesirable. I felt like a freak even more that I already did, having a huge chest in elementary school. My mom started putting me on diets in the fifth grade. I remember one being a contest between the two of us to see of we could both not eat ANY sugar for a whole year. She always did the diets with me, but I still felt that I was the fat one because she never had my sister do it. I remember, when I was 17 and had finally gained a false sense of self worth through my body, (because of all the male attention I was receiving), my mom told me that I had love handles poking out of the top of my jeans on the sides when I sat down, and that I should do something about it and I felt angry, like, how dare she continue to harass me when I was happy with who I was? My parents got into Chinese herbs when I was 13, and my older half brother, who never lived with us, was visiting. I took him to the neighborhood swimming pool. There were some older kids from my school there, kind of popular, and he talked with them a little, I felt stupid and out of place. After they stopped talking and left, and after seeing me in my bathing suit, he said, “Why don’t you try taking the herbs your parents sell and lose some of that weight?” My brother and sister never commented or seemed to notice my body. I take that back, my little sister would pick up my bras and hold them at arm’s length between her fingers and wrinkle up her face and say, “EEEEEEEEEWE! Yuck!” I yet again felt like a freak. -- Laura Adams, Bothell

I am now in my 30s, and my body has changed immensely. All the curves I wanted for so long are here, and I don’t always know what to do with them. Sometimes I put on a dress that I could never have filled out as a teen and I feel awe. Other times I look at the cute clothes I used to be able to buy and know that they aren’t a part of my image anymore. Sadly, I often think about clothes and myself as if I am the same size and weight I once was—the changeover has been hard. My boyfriend loves my body the way it is, and he tells me that I just have an athletic build, but he doesn’t know what I used to look like. People don’t use the word skinny anymore, and I am left wondering where, between skinny and now, I am actually supposed to be. When I apologize for what I consider flab to my massage therapist, she tells me that I have solid muscles and that massaging me is actually quite difficult because of that. So … is this the body type I am supposed to be? If so, I need an image consultant to help me make the most of it and stop dressing the way I used to. If not, I’d like to know so I can shape this body to a healthier one. When I first became aware that my body type had changed, I was obsessed with what other people looked like. I’d stare at people on the street and wonder: Does she wear a size 10, too? Is that what I look like? Or is she thinner than me? I just wanted some sort of gauge, and I never truly found one. I did realize, after talking to a lot of friends who are size 10s as well, that we don’t look the same. Size 10 can mean a lot of different things. I wouldn’t consider most of my size 10 friends large, and many days I don’t think of myself as large, either, but compared to before, when I was a 5—sometimes even a 3—I am!!! -- Alison Peacock, Seattle, WA

My father was obsessed with women's bodies including mine. He made regular comments about men looking at me and continually made me pose for him. He saw me not as his daughter but as another woman whose worth was tied solely to her appearance. I remember the shame I felt when my father would say men were looking at me. He started telling me that when I was 8. He could make a sexual comment about anything and did. -- "Eve"

Once upon a time there was a beautiful young child with blonde curly hair that was born into the wrong family. She was told that she was ugly, fat and stupid. But she knew that they must be wrong because God does not make mistakes like that. So she figured out that she was in the wrong family that is why she did not look like them. As she grew older she read an old story about an ugly duckling who was searching for the world in which it fit. She noticed as her body changed that she was growing into a woman and soon she would know the family that was to have been hers. As she traveled through life and years she began to realize that she had to make the family that would be hers so she began to gather to her others who were looking for their soul families. As she lived her life and gathered her family her body became the wealth of love and soulness for others. The more she traveled and lived the more she realized she was to fit within her own world and love her own body and the only way to do that was to go back in time and change the input she had been given. As she studied she realized that her heart was as large as any living being in life and it would sustain her beyond her life because of the way she influenced others. She learned that her arms were long, graceful and strong to embrace life and others. To give comfort and encouragement in the form of hugs. Her hands were tender and broad to reach out and to grab up another from some stumble in life. Her legs were strong and solid to support all of her life and her goals. And to help hold up others around her who sometimes doubted. Her face was now that of one who had lived through the hard times and the challenges of self discovery to have come through to the other side of turmoil to enjoy the moments of life that out weigh any of the troubles. Her face shows a joy for life, an enthusiasm for the unknown and a peacefulness to accept life as it comes and to see it as it is. Moments added to moments. -- Terry Terry, Shoreline

I got married three years ago. On my wedding day I was a size 6 and had been from my mid-20s. Today I am a size 10. Something happened and the adjustment was hell. For two years I was afraid to dress myself or shop for clothes because the clothes I had always counted on (style and size) did not work for some reason. I had spent decades building a wardrobe that I though would take me into my golden years. I wasted hundreds of dollars trying to keep up with my body. My body was changing not just size, but shape. I had always been curvy, but now I had a tummy for the first time in my life. And my already big boobs (32D) doubled in size. One day, my birthday two years ago, after a junkie made some comment about my boobs, I stumbled into Nordstrom and cried on the shoulder of a very nice personal-touch shopper who took me under her wing and helped my retune my body image. About a year later I was being fitted for a bra and my fitter suggested a larger cup size (34G). I could not go there. I called my doc and made an appointment with a surgeon. I sobbed for hours and finally called my mom who had undergone this surgery four years before. She did not understand why I was crying. I think I cried because I regretted not doing it sooner. I was mourning two decades of emotional pain and scars. Three months later I had breast-reduction surgery. I am so happy I did it. In the summer I have been known to sunbathe at nude beaches. That has helped a lot with body-image issues. -- Suzanne Schmalzer, Seattle

In some ways, as I have aged, my notion of what is attractive has changed dramatically, in others it has stayed the same. When I was 21, I found women between the ages of 18 and 25 attractive to me. I couldn't imagine a relationship with a woman younger then 18, and anyone older then 25 seemed ancient. Now, at the age of 45, I find women between the age of 35 and 50 attractive. What has stayed the same is that for me to find a woman attractive she must be smart, strong, confident, and healthy. I think that on some very primal level the basic biology that triggers my physical response to any specific woman is based on the question "Would she make a good life mate?" If a woman is anorexic, obese or weak and neurotic, she is less likely to make a good life mate, and I don't find her attractive.-- David Williams, Burien

My father used to tell me all of the time that I had "baby-bearing hips." He said that my hips were wide "just like my mother's" and that that I born to bear kids. He also frequently made fun of how thin I was. My mother was often worried about my "attractiveness" to men, and attempted to control my appearance in a number of ways. She also criticized my appearance in very odd ways, pointing out strange, complex flaws in my body. -- Kristin McHenry, Seattle