Eating healthy, exercising are important, being a size 0 is not

The pressure for females to be thin is everywhere you look in our society. Magazines in store aisles, commercials and TV shows, the Internet and A-list actresses who wear a size 0.

What has happened to our world? As women we have enough to worry about. We nurture our children, work, go to school, clean the house, cook and then we worry about being thin enough.

So why do I care?

I care because I've had little girls tell me that they are fat. Little girls who are worried about being thin enough. Little girls who haven't even hit puberty. Little girls who are already consumed by their body image. I may not have a daughter but I am one. I am also a woman who has experienced having children.

I have to be honest, for the most part I'm a slim person but during my pregnancies I gained a lot of weight. I was just fairly lucky in the fact that most of it fell off quite easy.

But, while I was pregnant I felt fat. I did gain a lot of weight. With my first son I gained 70 or so pounds. With my second son I gained around 60.

That's a lot of "package" for a girl who was always small.

Pregnancy should have been a wondrous time watching my body expand and the life inside me grow. But, it wasn't. I felt fat, tired and unfit.

It's funny because no one else saw me like that. But, that didn't matter to me.

So, why was I so ashamed of a perfectly natural state?

I'm not sure. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with wanting to look good. Looking good can mean feeling good. But, there's a limit.

Being beautiful also comes from within.

Believe me I think about being fit and I want to be healthy. Who doesn't? But, we need positive and realistic role models for our girls.

We need to teach them that exercise and eating healthy is important and being a size 0 is not.

We also need to tell each other more often than not that we are beautiful no matter what size we are.

* Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical. -- Sophia Loren

* Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart. -- Khalil Gibran