I was only six years old when I knew that I never wanted to be “fat.” All little girls want to be “pretty”, and to me, that meant being thin. It still does.

This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (NEDAW), seven days devoted to reduce the stigma of eating disorders and improve access to treatment.

In a study completed by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD), anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents. Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives.

However, the aspiration to be skinny takes root far earlier, even before hitting puberty. In the same study, 81 percent of 10-year-old girls reported being afraid to be fat. Forty-seven percent of fifth to 12th grade girls reported wanting to lose weight because of magazine pictures, and 69 percent reported that advertisement photos influenced their idea of perfection.

In contrast, the body type portrayed in advertising as “the ideal” is possessed naturally by only five percent of American females.

Like any child growing up, I idolized girls in the media, but my choices were slightly unorthodox. While others dreamed of becoming Hannah Montana, I was hoping to become Jo from Little Women, be beautiful like Grace Kelly, and reach the success of Eleanor Roosevelt. Although my tastes were not solely based upon appearance, I aspired to be beautiful, thin, and graceful like Audrey Hepburn.

Throughout the years, I participated in various sports, and almost all of them catered to a lightweight body type. Competitive figure skating, for one, deeply emphasized a thin, petite, and graceful body with a low weight to achieve quicker mid air turns.

However, of all the physical activities I participated outside of school, none stresses so heavily the “ideal” body type more than my favorite: classical ballet.

I have been dancing ballet for as long as I can remember and even have had the pleasure to dance in New York with the prestigious Joffrey Ballet. Ballet is a highly competitive, high-pressure, and physically demanding sport that is also an art.

Even at a high school level, there is pressure to have an ideal “Balanchine” body type: tall and slender with a long neck, hyperextended legs, short torsos, and of course, thin as can be.

The fact of the matter is that it is the ideal ballet body for a reason. Like in any competitive sport, it is a great advantage to have the “ballet body”; having a high foot arch is the dance equivalent to being a tall basketball player.

Although I have never felt the urge to vomit in order to become thinner, I certainly felt the pressure to be thin. I, in more ways than one, am not the ideal ballet dancer. I have wide hips, am short in stature, and have a practically nonexistent thigh gap.

Sometimes, I would decrease my food intake in hopes of being thinner; I still ate, but not as much as I should. I would go running, but I saw no “improvement.”

During that time, I felt constantly tired, always hungry, performed worse than I did before, and I didn’t even lose much weight. Needless to say, I stopped. It just wasn’t worth it. It never is.

However, some of my fellow dancers I know do not have the same tenacious willpower that I possess. I personally know at least three girls who have starved themselves to be thinner, and not all of them are dancers. I know at least two people who have forced themselves to vomit, and more people than I can count, female and male, who are insecure about their appearance.

I am insecure about my appearance, although I’m not particularly concerned with being perceived as beautiful. My body image insecurity roots from some ineffable feeling of incurable inadequacy, even if the only person I may be inadequate for is myself.

The theme for this year’s NEDAW is “Everybody Knows Somebody.” If you didn’t previously know somebody before, you do now. My name is Kaity Gee, and I just wanted to be pretty. We all do–it’s human nature to strive for perfection, but starving yourself in hopes of becoming morbidly underweight is not the answer.