I'll be completely honest: I couldn't do it alone. Without outside input, I think I'm flabby and disproportionate and plain. That's where my boyfriend comes in. 4 years of being told how beautiful I am, in detail, have helped a lot. 4 years of being told that if I try to drop from a healthy, average size to a much lower, less healthy size, he'd miss my curves... and stage an intervention involving lasagna and ice cream and cake. He's helped me come to terms with my curves, even though the world keeps trying to tell me that a small girl with large breasts looks unbalanced and fake and belongs in porn.

So, for me, I keep up my confidence in my body by finding outside sources of encouragement. Maybe someday I won't need it, but it's a good place to start.

I try to ignore it, and I refuse to watch television. It distorts everything! What we see on the screens, the movies, what we hear from people around us, it just doesn't compare to how our mother sees us or how our husbands see us. When my husband Jonathan tells me how beautiful and perfect I am, just the way I am, I still don't believe him. My self esteem is so low that even when I don't believe the shit from the media, I still think I'm ugly. And I know that I'm beautiful, but sometimes I just don't. I'm a really depressed person, so looking in the mirror is generally just hard for me. Jonathan thinks I'm perfect, and I know he means it, and I should listen. But as far as ideals that someone has for me that are impossible to achieve, those are the ideals that I made for myself. I'm too much of a perfectionist to just accept myself the way I am.

Ditto! LOL And ground even deeper in through highschool. (3.5 years of pure hell)

I can only hope I can manage to instill this same sort of value in my daughters - to be happy in their own skin regardless of what people may say.

On a more personal level, I have my own issues with my body and there's nothing to be done about it short of getting on medications I have no interest in taking. My self confidence is shaky at times but, over the years, it's become like a muscle - the more I use it, the stronger it gets. While it's always nice to hear a compliment from someone else and it can be very helpful, I know that my own worth and happiness starts and ends with me.

I hit a point at which I realized that I'm never going to look as hot naked as I did when I was 16, and it's probably all downhill from here, so I might as well enjoy what I've got because there's not a whole lot I can do to change it. I regret all the time I spent as a teen worrying about the size of my breasts and thighs when they were perfect as they were, and I know that when I'm 60 I'm going to regret all the time I spent stressing out about my appearance when I was young. I'm going to make the best of what I've got and take care of it while I've got it.

It also helps to have a partner who loves my breasts, because I was insecure about them for ages. And of course, the attention I get from random strangers when I look nice doesn't hurt.

Also, keeping in mind all of the photoshop done in magazines and movies helps me a lot. Those people aren't real. And the ones who really are that skinny and beautiful are being paid to maintain that image. If my only job was to look hot and I had all the time in the world to eat right and exercise, of course I'd have more muscles than jiggly bits and tan lines in all the right places and people to do my makeup for me. But you know what? I'd be boring if that's all there was to my life. I'd rather do the things I do now than worry about perfecting my body. Not that I don't take care of myself, but my goals are realistic.