For the past year, I have been researching eating disorders, their causes and effects. There are essays, books, medical journals, psychologist reports that deal with anorexia, bulimia, binging, purging, and obsessive exercise. Everywhere, there is evidence of a silent epidemic that strikes in adolescence and can last a lifetime.

There is also the evidence of my own eyes. In a friend's room, I see a prayer on the wall that asks God for the ability to accept her body as it is. I walk past a girl who is lamenting the extra pounds she has put on, though none are visible. In a dressing room, actresses urge one another not to look at their 'flabby' bodies.

Everything, every single item has the same message. There is something dreadfully wrong with the way our culture perceives beauty. Either a girl sees beauty as the goal, and destroys herself in order to attain it, or she sees beauty as unrealistic and cannot believe she is beautiful. She loses either way.

The message is there to be seen, but those who should be telling of the destructiveness of the ideal cannot speak. They are exhausted, worn out from a battle they can only lose, or they are dead.

Those of us who see these things happening must speak. We are the only voices.