I am 18 years old. 5 feet tall,and 80 pounds. My life is 50-50 with people and their comments. There's the girls that see me and say "Omg,you look sick! Go eat a burger!" Then there's the girls AND guys who say "Your so lucky I wish I could eat as much as you & be that thin!" It hurts my feelings and makes me actually cry some days I hear the comments about being "sick" looking. I struggle every single day to gain weight,I've been trying since 11th grade. I'm just going to be starting college in September and am so embarrassed to even go there looking like a 13 year old girl! I have tons of protein shakes a day! The ones that have whole milk with them and everything! I eat potatoes,peanut butter,eggs.. everything that's supposed to make you "fat". I even eat junk food all day,everyday sit on my butt and do nothing and still can't weigh anymore then 80 freakin' pounds. I just want to weigh like 95 pounds and I'll be happy. Please help. I want boobs,& a butt for summer.. I just want to look normal,I eat normal so why can't I look like everyone else! =,( Any PILLS? DRINKS? FOODS? Something!

I'm not sure how much help I can be, I'm certainly no where near an expert on nutrition, but I know a little from being really skinny through HS and wrestling.

The most important thing I can say right off the bat is to go see your doctor, someone who specializes in growth. I'm not sure what there official name is, but I went to one in HS and they can chart out your growth/weight expectancy, tell you what your doing right/wrong, and give you supplements.

Weight has a lot to do with genetics as opposed to what you eat or drink, so it's not that there's anything wrong with you. Some people develop early and some later. A lot of people have this belief that skinny = healthy and fat = unhealthy, and that's simply not the case. Everyone's weight is largely determined by the gene's they inherit from their parents. I would highly suggest you concentrate on eating healthy as opposed to "getting fat as quick as possible". That mean's 3 meals a day, get a good portion of meat and potatoes, as well as fruits and veggies. You want to drink protein daily, but not more than the recommended amount. If you drink too much, your body will stop absorbing it from the food you eat and rely on the protein coming from the shakes, and that can lead to a bunch of problems. It's also a good idea to get some sort of physical activity, even if you want to gain weight. To give an example, a 15 minute bike ride burns off 100 calories, or 1/3 of a hamburger. It's a lot better in the long run to focus on being an overall healthy person regardless of your current weight, as everyone will gain the weight eventually unless there's something seriously wrong.

The best advice I can give you is that if your truly worried about it, go talk to your doctor and ask him to recommend a specialist. They are experts and can tell you a lot more than anyone online can. I hope everything works out for you.


p.s. When I was wrestling, we were told to eat eggs because it fills you up and you wouldn't gain any weight. Like I say, I don't know the science behind it, but I ate them for a year while cutting and it worked. I could eat 2 eggs in the morning and burn it off by lunch time. Bacon will make you gain weight, and I've heard grits will too.

Don't waste your life feeling bad about the functioning, healthy body you've been given. Many of us want to look different than we do, but it's just kind of wasteful in the end because we can't.

I have the opposite concerns - I am a tall woman and tend to put on weight. I often feel like a "giant" and am always having to watch every calorie. I'm on weight watchers and have lost some of my weight, but gained four pounds in just three days because I went on a vacation and ate what everyone else did. It's certainly very frustrating, and I'm now losing those pounds again before I can move on and make additional progress.

Age will put some weight on you, and the other option is to start working out with weights - you can put on some muscle mass which will give you some definition and strength and make you healthier overall. But you are destined to be a smaller scale person, and need to find something about that to love.

You need to see your doctor and have your thyroid checked. It is possible you have an overactive thyroid, better known as hyperthyroidism.

Dear ashleynicoli,
Just love your body how it is :)

See a doctor and make sure there's no medical reason for your weight.

After that, just focus on being healthy. Eat healthy, exercise, and be good to yourself. So your body isn't exactly how you'd like it. Join the club!

I can tell you right now in high school I HATED my nose. It's not a perfect nose and it's huge (in my opinion). Somehow I learned to love it and now it is my favorite feature on my face.

There are a lot of great things a person with a tiny body can do that bigger girls wish they could. You can wear tube tops, leggings, big t-shirts with a belt and call it a dress (and people will think "man, that's cute!"), you can wear all spandex if you wanted! You can be catwoman for halloween!

I'm just saying that our bodies give us a lot of gifts. We just need to accept those gifts and use them!

My sister has your problem. My mother nicknamed her 'the skeleton', as a child. It is true that she feels I will never understand because I struggle to balance my excess gained weight, as opposed to gaining weight. Up to this day she has not gained much weight and continues to wonder when she will. Many girls often make comments about her being anorexic but just as I always tell her, they say that because deep down inside they are insecure about their weight. Making you doubt yourself, helps them feel comfortable. It's a sick attitude to have and if you let it get to you, you are letting yourself esteem down. There is no amount of food you can eat to change yourself. Weight is a genetic factor, as much as it is a physical factor. Eating junk food all day will not gain you weight only move your diet to the unhealthy side. You are about to start college and there is no reason you should be focusing on an issue as small as this when it doesn't matter to so many people what you weigh, just the minority. People who have time to talk about other people's weight, literally have their priorities wrong and girls who have time to worry about themselves being too naturally skinny need to learn to love yourself enough to accept yourself.

I understand that problem quite well. Until I had my son I had been 80 pounds for over a decade, except at one point. I even won eating competitions against teenage boys. The only time in that whole period that I gained 7 pounds(better than nothing) was when I joined dance team. I always hated exercise, but I was tired of being called a couch potato. Anyway I built muscle during that year, after losing very little fat. When I stopped, I lost all of that hard earned weight in less than a month. Had a kid weighed 110 the day I gave birth, 95 right after, gained it back after done nursing, stopped drinking soda and now drink water at 92 pounds. So exercise and eat drink junk to maintain it, that's if you're anything like I was weight wise.