<p>Please critique it!</p>
<pre><code>While Growing up, my room was filled with countless numbers of intoxicating teen magazines filled with skinny photo-shopped girls with perfect hair and teeth. These images brainwashed me into thinking the only way to be accepted would be to look just like the girls in the magazines.
When I entered sophomore year, I was anything but confident in myself, and thought if there was a "perfect type of girl", I was at the opposite end of the spectrum. I was a heavy set, frizzy haired girl with braces. I was tired of feeling this way about myself, so I started to diet and exercise constantly. As the pounds melted away, I became more and more determined with losing weight. After six months I stepped on the scale and to my relief I had lost 35 pounds. I thought I was still fat though.
At the end of sophomore summer, I went for my annual physical. My heartbeat dropped to 47 beats per minute and my bones were deteriorating from lack of calcium. My doctor stared me straight in the face and said I should be admitted to Stanford hospital for an eating disorder, I was speechless. She put me on a 3,000 calorie diet, and I was not allowed to play Water Polo until my heart beat increased. I panicked. I knew I would put on weight. I had weekly doctors appointments, a nutritionist, a therapist, and parents who interrogated me everyday about what I ate. Everyone had control over my life except me.
Five months later, I got all my vitals to where they should have been. I put on about six pounds, and I no longer had to go to weekly appointments. I felt free and happy. Although this experience was one of the hardest things I have ever had to go through, it made a me a stronger and better individual.
This experience gave me compassion for others, and acceptance to not only myself but to everyone. I now see everyone for who they are from within, instead of what is shown from the surface. I am motivated to continue being healthy and to appreciate my body instead of devaluing it. I am and will always be determined.
I fought hard to lose weight, and when I lost my battle I fought hard to beat my illness. This quality shines through with other achievements I've had, too. I strive and work hard for excellent grades. I practice and sweat for my water polo and swim team, and I spend time and effort helping my community through Jacob Hearts. I try my hardest to be a leader not only to my family and friends, but for my community through volunteering as a Camp Leader at outdoor science school. I learned how to be independent and self reliant, because it was up to me to cure myself. Last, I learned how to be happy.
I learned the key to happiness is to stop comparing your self to others and start focusing on the being the best possible person that you can be. I emptied my room of all the airbrushed girls, and threw them in the garbage. Not only did I throw away the
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<p>taunting magazines, but I threw away the idea of ever changing myself into something that I am not.</p>