Sophia is an average all American girl. She is Italian and her family gets together quite frequently for celebrations. They have huge feasts for accomplishments and milestones. She watches her mother cook and serve the dishes to her family. She sees how much food makes those she loves happy. She gets honor roll and is rewarded for her accomplishment with a dish of freshly homemade manicotti. Her favorite Italian dish by far! She is happy and comfortable with herself and her body image. She watches quite a bit of television with her friends and family. She is content, smart and very well rounded.
Upon reaching her thirteenth birthday she notices that she is somehow different than those portrayed on the television. She is slightly overweight, and unable to fit into her clothes like she did when she was younger. Her peers begin to notice her heavy disposition and she is mocked and ridiculed for being different. She struggles with diet after diet to control her weight. She just wants to be like everyone else. She longs for acceptance. She becomes friends with Anna, who is popular and skinny and a part of their school’s cheerleading team. Sophia wants to learn all about her and soon finds herself idolizing Anna.
Anna encourages Sophia to join the school’s cheerleading squad. She tries out for the team and she is accepted. She drops weight by exercising, but she is not happy about her appearance. Until one day at the mall, when Sophia’s life changes forever. Sophia was eating a salad at the food court and sticking to her regimen for weight loss, but Anna was engorging herself with fast food and a milkshake. Sophia questioned her, “How do you stay so thin, when you eat like that?” Anna became very quiet and asked Sophia not to tell anyone what she was going to tell her. Anna told her she was fasting and then occasionally she would make herself throw up. This way she could eat what she wanted and not feel guilty about it. This idea felt so very strange and harmful to Sophia. She couldn’t understand how one could make herself throw up and be so happy and pleasant about it. At this time, Sophia was a healthy weight for a girl her age. Though she would look in the mirror and still see the chubby girl that would be made fun of at school. After their meals, Sophia follows Anna into the bathroom. The one bathroom made for families, the one that is private for baby changing. She witnesses Anna throwing up, hovered above the toilet. All the food she just ate coming up in buckets. Anna stands up washes up and is ready to continue their shopping trip. Sophia is stunned and amazed at the will of this girl. She is much stronger than Sophia had given her credit.
After she returns home she notices that her weight has fluctuated 4 pounds, and she ate salad! She is frustrated and breaks down in tears. She turns on the television and reads her teen magazine to keep her mind off it. On TV she sees all these girls that are perfect in her eyes. As she flips through her magazine she is amazed to see all the girls her age that are flawless. They have no weight issues, and they look happy. Just like Anna…
She decides to take matters into her own hands; she will follow her friend’s footsteps. She cannot bring herself to throwing up, but she goes days without eating. She drops 6 pounds in a week. She is starving though, until one day. Her family has a huge celebration for her father’s birthday, and she binges on just about everything. While everyone is out in the yard celebrating her father, she sneaks away to the downstairs bathroom. She psyches herself up by telling herself the food she just ate was disgusting. She tells herself over and over that she is fat and the food is what makes her fat. She finally takes her finger and gags herself with it. Sophia regurgitates all of her meal till she is throwing up bile. She feels as if she is on an adrenaline rush. She cleans herself up and returns to her family outside in the yard. Her grandmother comes to her and tells her how beautiful she has become, and that she is looking thinner these days. Sophia is elated and proud of herself. And so, the cycle begins.
Days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months. Anna and Sophia begin by making it a game of which one could reach 110 pounds before the other. Sophia’s family applauds her for losing weight, but they don’t realize how she is doing it. Sophia realizes that throwing up just isn’t making the cut anymore, so she turns to the internet for answers. She finds countless of websites and girls using diet pills and laxatives to lose weight, so she decides she will too. She is shaky and unstable at times, and she can’t focus on subjects in school like she used to. She is happy and accepted by her peers though, and she feels she is achieving the look of those portrayed in the media. She continues on with her downward spiral.
Her family begins to notice her grades dropping below average, and how thin she has become. She begins to wear baggy clothes as to distract her families concerns. Anna has reached the 110 pounds before Sophia and this drives Sophia over the edge. She begins to binge and purge after each meal she allows herself to eat, and she is also taking diet pills mixed with laxatives to control her hunger pains and flush out her system. Sophia at this time is 5’4 and 115 pounds. If her family could notice the bones of her spine starting to emerge from her skin on her back they would be alarmed, but her body is covered in heavy clothing and their child looks happy.
One day Anna doesn’t come to school. There are rumors that she had been hospitalized and that her organs were failing. Sophia is worried and goes directly to Anna’s house after school. Her parents welcome Sophia in and question her if she knew about what Anna had been doing to herself. They advise Sophia that they had found Anna in the bathroom covered in her own vomit with a bottle of ipecac by her side. They had never noticed how truly thin their daughter was until that moment they found her. They tell Sophia that Anna is in a coma, and that her kidneys are failing her body and that it is uncertain if she will survive. Anna’s parents said they went through Anna’s room when they had returned from admitting their daughter to the hospital. They found jars of vomit hidden in her closet. Anna had been trying to hide and count how many times she binged and purged. Anna’s parents went on to say that there were pictures of models from magazines all over her walls in her room. They had found her journal and saw the risks that she had been taking with her own life for months and months. Sophia watched in horror as her friend’s parents wept openly for their daughter. She didn’t want this to happen to her family. She rushed home because she wanted to be held by her family more than ever.
Upon returning home, Sophia changed into an outfit she had not worn since she was that average American girl of 140 pounds. It swam on her 105 pound body, and she confronted her family with it on. All her bones protruding out of her skin, her tan skin now pale with malnutrition. She confesses to her family of her bad choices and of her friend who is now fighting for her life. They embrace her, crying and telling her she is loved. She is admitted to a treatment facility where she learns all over again how to eat healthy.
She later learns that Anna passed away. She wonders about all the other girls that don’t have it in them to go to their parents like she has and ask for help. She wonders why the media continuously shows girls that are super thin versus girls that are healthy and average. She still struggles with food, but she no longer wishes diets to control her. She is sad from the loss of her friend, but she is thankful for the lesson she has learned.
