Yes, you are

“Wait … Is that all you’re eating for lunch?” my friend asked me as we stood in line at Milano. I had picked up a diet ginger ale, a cup of soup, and an overpriced container of sliced watermelon.

“I had two cookies an hour ago,” I replied curtly. She shot me another judging look—the sort that girls do so well, and the sort that only friends could forgive and understand.

Columbia girls—and boys—are expected to have our cake, eat it, and look like we didn’t in the first place. We try to attain perfection, but we have to look like we’re not even trying. And we inscribe it onto each other’s bodies in the most blatant of ways—by judging each other’s eating habits. Just as we are expected to party hard on the weekends and get top grades and prestigious internships, we hold ourselves—and our peers—up to the standards of eating with indulgence and still looking like Karlie Kloss in Vogue Italia. (But seriously, damn girl.)

Earlier this year, I had brunch with two other svelte friends on two separate occasions. “I hate when girls don’t eat,” both girls had independently remarked in passing, as we moved onto conversation about the best designer thrift shops in Brooklyn. On both occasions, I ordered a veggie burger with sweet potato fries, not because I was particularly hungry—or hungover—but because I didn’t want to be the girl dismissed around the booth at Tom’s a month later: “Oh, her? She’s nice but … She doesn’t really eat.”

Another scenario from this past semester: I was making dinner with a guy friend when he said, “It’s a good thing you eat. Guys like girls who eat.”

“You mean, guys like skinny girls who eat, right?” I teased back. He looked at me dumbfounded and I went back to silently chopping potatoes and lamenting how I had already chipped my new Deborah Lippmann glitter nail polish.

“She doesn’t really eat.” “Why aren’t you eating more?” “Guys like (thin) girls who eat.” Such short, innocuously-sounding statements that are actually loaded with judgment not just about one’s lifestyle, personality, and appearance, but also about one’s ability to be a successful Columbia student. These statements are embedded within the idea that one should indulge—live life to the fullest and perhaps even excess—with the appearance of complete self-control. They’re embedded within the idea of showing up to class with a hangover and still getting an A in the class. It is the idea of being a “hot mess” on weekends and the quintessential Blue Album student during the school week, and it is made blatantly visible by the stares we give one another, judging each other’s appearances across College Walk, by the water fountain, or at Mel’s. You don’t need to say, “lose the muffin top” or “are you sure you should be getting fries?” when you can just stare at the “offender” a second too long for comfort.

And frankly, none of these things should come as a surprise, as Columbia students are experts when it comes to maintaining an air of nonchalance on College Walk, while furiously (mis)counting the number of Red Bulls they’ve had that day in their head.

Consequently, Columbia students strive to attain excellence in every possible way imaginable. We want to be the best—but what happens when our best is still far from perfection?

It doesn’t take a college degree to know that words do hurt and that looking good is harder than it appears. And we’re not claiming full acceptance of each other’s bodies when we judge each other’s body “deficiencies” and still expect indulgence from each other. Magazines tell us that the moment you “fix” something about yourself, something else needs to be “fixed”: Hide your curves! Or ... flaunt your curves! Dress for your body type! Or ... dare to wear whatever you want! If there is no universal standard for anything, what are we all striving for?

Girls, you shouldn’t have to impress a date by eating a burger if you don’t want to, and your itty-bitty-teeny-weeny-yellow-polka-dot-bikini girlfriends shouldn’t judge you for passing up the second helping of Häagen-Dazs. Boys, if your girlfriend wants a salad with Diet Coke for dinner, don’t push her to eat your steak. It’s hard enough to be a 20-something-year-old at an Ivy League school in New York City, constantly bombarded by airbrushed images of celebrities and models with personal trainers and nutritionists. We don’t need to place additional—and oftentimes contradictory—pressure on our peers and ourselves. Society already tells us we’re not good enough.

But guess what? We are. We just need to start treating each other like we know and believe it.

Noel Duan is a Columbia College junior majoring in anthropology and concentrating in art history. She is currently studying abroad in Paris and is the co-founder of Hoot magazine. You Write Like a Girl runs alternate Thursdays.