I am not naturally that thin, so I had to go through everything from using drugs to diet pills to laxatives to fasting. Those were my main ways of controlling my weight.

I was essentially paid to perpetuate the myth that we are all, or should at least try to be, 17 and a size 2 forever.

Being born and raised as a Californian, I somewhat ignorantly had taken for granted the diversity and liberal mindset that shaped my childhood and adult life.

I think that we can't deny the public's want for balancing out the images that are out there depicting women. Not all of us are 17 and a size two.

My parents were both from the East and had moved to San Francisco only so my father could go to law school there.

Motherhood has brought me many joys and insights, but the new perspective it granted me on the role I had inadvertently played in young women's lives for the 2 decades I spent in the modeling industry was downright sobering.

Life is full of change and uncertainty. We know this. We experience it on a daily basis.