Last week when talking to a group of grade 10 and 11 girls I struggled to help them see that judgment is bad whether someone is skinny, or fat or tall or short. And that when you are complimenting someone for losing weight, you don’t really know what you are complimenting. Have you just complimented someone for being ill? Have you just complimented someone for having a serious eating disorder? Are you encouraging someone’s thoughts that they do not measure up just the way they are or were?

There is a story I read by a young women recovering from anorexia and what she found most disturbing was that while she was shopping someone told her how great she looked. All she kept thinking was I have been hospitalized a handful of times because I am going to die from what I am doing to myself, and here I stand killing myself, but you think I look good. Anyway, here’s a great little article in the New York Times that says it way better than I.