you must tell them true stories, and everything will be well

Or not.



The damn, liberal media strikes again! How dare they show a non-airbrushed woman to the American public! My eyes can never unsee that image!

For many years, J.K. Rowling has been my idol. I've admired her success, her wonderful books, her humilty, and her amazing work for charities and children around the world. She's the reason why I write, why my goal is to become a published author.

And tonight, she's my idol for a different reason.

Posted on her website, in the Extra Stuff section, was an entry titled For Girls Only, Probably... and it dealt primarily with girls and the pressure to be thin. Jo addressed the issue wonderfully and by the end of the article, I was near tears.

It meant so much to read her words, her reassurances that being thin doesn't matter. I'm not "fat;" I'm an averaged sized girl and I'm probably a few pounds overweight. I tell myself everyday that I am not "fat," but then I see ten girls in my classes who's sizes range from zero to five and the thought falls flat on it's face. I feel enormous to these girls who look absolutely amazing in the clothes I want, who's stomachs don't bluge, who don't have chunky arms and thighs. Sometimes I hate myself from not trying harder to be thin, for not working out when I should, for being lazy and even eating.

I can't thank Jo enough for what she wrote. It's one thing to have your mother say size doesn't matter (when she's trying to lose weight herself), but it's another when your ultra famous role model say it on her website for the entire world to see.

I'm so glad that there's people like Jo in the world for teenage girls like me to look up to.

Quote from For Girls Only, Probably... by J.K. Rowling:

'Stupid Girls' satirises the talking toothpicks held up to girls as role models: those celebrities whose greatest achievement is un-chipped nail polish, whose only aspiration seems to be getting photographed in a different outfit nine times a day, whose only function in the world appears to be supporting the trade in overpriced handbags and rat-sized dogs.

Maybe all this seems funny, or trivial, but it's really not. It's about what girls want to be, what they're told they should be, and how they feel about who they are. I've got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don't want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before 'thin'. And frankly, I'd rather they didn't give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do.





Thanks, Jo, for everything.