PSA: Wear Whatever The Hell You Want

College student reminds women that they should wear whatever they want

Bowling Green State University student Sara Petty turned to a fitness group after she’d had what she describes as a particularly bad semester of “eating a lot and working out a little.” The group gave her the confidence to feel really freaking great about how she looks — and she should.

Sara weighs over 200 pounds. And she feels great in her skin. Let this be a lesson to women everywhere: it’s not about a number on a scale. It’s about caring for yourself and recognizing all the wonderful parts about your body. They are there, whether you see them or not. “This body is mine, no matter what it looks like,” Sara told Buzzfeed. “Chubby with cellulite or toned with a six pack, this body is mine. It is mine to love and to care for, but no matter what shape it’s in, it’s mine. So I better love it in all of its forms.”

She recently posted some tweets about body image which have garnered a lot of attention. It seems finally being surrounded by other women who were so overwhelmingly supportive of her path to feel better about her body (in this case through fitness) made her realize how many times women are not lifting each other up — and how damaging that can be.

She decided to do some keyword searches on Twitter: things like “200 pounds bikini” or “200 pounds crop top” to see what people had to say. She found mostly women, putting each other down. Enraged, she decided to send a message of her own: “GIRLS, WEAR WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT.” She sent that message along with the following tweets.

Leggings? Girls, wear whatever the hell you want.

Boy shorts? Girls, wear whatever the hell you want.

Crop tops? Girls, wear whatever the hell you want.

Bikinis? Girls, wear whatever the hell you want.

“I hope women realize how important it is to stop tearing each other down and uplift each other,” Petty told The Huffington Post. “We have a lot going against us as women, we don’t need other women against us, too.”

Truth. I’ll never forget a story an old friend told me about her mother’s last months on earth. She was still having my friend help her to the scale to look at the numbers on it. It was the lightest she’d ever been. Debilitated by sickness, still caring about the diminishing numbers on the scale.

Look in the mirror today and thank your body for being healthy. Thank it now, even if you are “unhappy” with the number on the scale. And if you see a woman wearing something that you would never wear because you think you’re “too big” for it, instead of judging her, try something different. Silently ask the universe to give you the confidence to love your body as much as she loves hers.