They say real women have curves.

So does that mean that women who wear a 32 A or fit comfortably into size zero pants, aren’t real?

In my previous columns, I’ve focused on the pressure we face as women to eat less, work out more, and constantly refine our bodies. However, our society’s tendency to wear away at any glimpse of positive body image extends to both ends of the spectrum. Sadly, we put down larger women for being “too fat,” just as much as we discriminate against thinner women for looking emaciated.

We’ve all come across those women who are blessed with small frames and raging metabolisms, and more often than not, all we want to yell at them is, “Just go and eat a hamburger!”

It is frighteningly easy to fall into the practice of skinny shaming because it always seems far too likely that girls with single-digit body fat percentage must be battling an eating disorder and could learn a thing or two from the rest of us “healthy” people.

But that assumption could not be further from the truth. After all, we are in no position to judge a woman for her body type, especially to condemn her for being too thin when it’s not within her control.

So why do we do this? Why are we so obsessed with picking each other apart and focusing all of our attention on each other’s imperfections?

Journalist Sammi Taylor from Birdee Magazine accredits this tendency to “the product of our self-esteem. We are constantly unhappy, trying to reinvent ourselves by reducing the numbers on tags or scales.” I would have to agree.

As I was trying to find testimonies from victims of skinny shaming, I came across Amanda Russell, a 27-year-old YouTube fitness star, who has been thin her whole life, without really making any special effort to stay slim.

While on set for one of her videos, a colleague approached her to ask the question, “Do you even eat?”

Though questions like these feign concern, they are not compassionate or sensitive in the least. Suppose Amanda was battling anorexia — confronting her about a potential eating disorder would hardly do the trick. Is that question supposed to trigger a light bulb and show her that starving herself is not the answer?

Over the past several years, there has been a movement toward promoting body acceptance and embracing women of all shapes and sizes, but with cases like these still being all too common, it hardly seems that we are on the right track.

Amanda’s video referenced the “skinny backlash,” and I’d have to say it should be a source of concern. Zero most certainly is a size, and real women can also have little to no curves. Rather than associate one body type with the image of a healthy, happy woman, we need to focus more on a broader acceptance — one that incorporates every woman, whether she is a size 0 or size 14.

We need to remember that a number on the scale does not determine individual self-worth. But most importantly, we need to remember that every woman is real. No exceptions.

Daria Etezadi is a rising sophomore in the School of Foreign Service. Made From Scratch appears every other Monday at thehoya.com.