As a child, my body was similar to a lot of my South Asian friends: I was skinny, flat-chested and uncomfortably hairy. I never considered myself to be "too skinny," but I remember being reminded (read: judged) by South Asian aunties, including my mom of course, of how I looked. I had no curves as an awkward pre-teen. I was told I wouldn't look good in a saree and at a time when Bollywood stars weren't super thin, I didn't feel like I would grow into what I thought was a "normal" body of an Indian woman. As a child of immigrants being raised with these values, I believed this was how South Asians -- and the rest of Toronto -- talked about bodies. The words "fat" and "skinny" were thrown around my community like "hello" and "goodbye." It wasn't considered rude to call someone fat, it wasn't awkward to tell someone they gained weight to their face; and instead of focusing on eating healthily or exercising, I would hear people suggest skipping meals and fad diets like it was a one-stop easy fix.

Arti as a child. As a child of immigrants being raised with these values, I believed this was how South Asians -- and the rest of Toronto -- talked about bodies. The first time I really gained weight was in sixth grade and I was over 100 pounds. It was the first time I was aware of my body. I noticed my pants no longer fit, my stomach grew and I wasn't flat chested anymore. In seventh grade, I took a family trip to India and my weight was the hot topic. Family members I hadn't seen in years commented on how "fat" I had become; and when I walked into stores to buy sarees or lenghas, store owners told my mom it wouldn't look good on me or fit. It was blunt, but it was normal. It was the first time the attention directed at my body hurt me. I started noticing the weight of my friends, and like a jerk, I thought skinnier was more attractive. I began carefully looking at the bodies of my favourite singers at the time, like Britney Spears or members of the Spice Girls, and I told myself, at age 13, I had to be skinny again. During my time in India, I ended up getting really sick, so sick that I lost about 20 pounds. At that time, I was grateful, even though I spent weeks puking and feeling like shit. It was stupid, but I thought being sick was the best thing that could've happened to my body. I came back to Toronto with a new body and a new mindset -- this was the new me and I would never be mocked for the size of my body again. But as years went on, I had fully outgrown my teenage frame, my body looked like a woman's body and I was a lot more aware of my self-esteem. I got more familiar with the Canadian way of talking about weight and although women are judged, shamed and ridiculed for not looking a certain way all the time, I had learned weight was not something you brought up in conversation, and describing people as "fat" or "huge" were just plain mean.

Arti in grade 8. Accepting my body was a process, there was no easy fix, and even today I don't always feel perfectly content when I look in the mirror. It took a stupid liquid diet, a ton of reading on body image and a lot of body-positive friends to change my views on what I considered beautiful. I had great high school teacher who really opened my mind up about unrealistic beauty standards and fat shaming and I stopped thinking about weight, listening to rude brown aunties and was just comfortable in my own skin. But at home, however, weight is still talked about the same, but the reasons I had to lose weight or maintain it was starting to change. Losing weight or staying skinny or having fairer skin, wasn't about body confidence, but rather about finding a husband. When I tell some of my friends how my mom, for example, obsesses over the "perfect body," a lot of them wonder why I don't just tell her off. I remember toxic conversations when brown aunties would talk about how "fat" women have to settle for uglier men and if I wasn't careful, I would end up with an older man. Skinny wasn't only beautiful, it was more likely to end in a marriage, too. I am 27 today, single and the heaviest I've ever been at a size 10. I don't consider myself "fat" or "plus-size," I actually hate using these words to describe a person's body, unless people are comfortable or own these labels.