Undergraduate / (Freshman year of high school) UF - help with conveying "my voice" effectively [4]

Though I have very good grades, I am not good at writing, especially persuasive prose. The experience I am writing about my struggle with exercise and healthy eating as it relates to my body image. My writing needs a lot of editing and I fall far short of the 500 word maximum.

Thank you.

UF prompt:

"In the space provided, please write a concise narrative in which you describe a meaningful event, experience or accomplishment in your life and how it will affect your college experience or your contribution to the UF campus community. You may want to reflect on your ideas about student responsibility, academic integrity, campus citizenship or a call to service."

Freshman year of high school I wanted to fit in and be liked - to be considered smart and cool, especially by anyone who could help me move up in the social ranks. I turned all my attention to my body, believing that having a different and more desirable appearance would give me the status I wanted. I began to severely restrict my eating and as a result began to lose all of those pounds that had plagued me for years. The number on the scale became the barometer that determined how I felt about myself each day. My sole focus was on being thin. Although I instinctively knew what I was doing was wrong, I continued on this path, because I liked what I saw in the mirror and the number on the scale.

It took about a year until I started to realize that I would never look like the image I had carried in my mind for so long. I had to find the courage to admit to my family and close friends, that my eating behavior was not healthy. The body image I had worked so hard for was unattainable by severe dieting alone. I had been wrong. I refocused my efforts at that time into learning how to live a healthy lifestyle. I joined a gym, changed the way I ate and threw away my scale. For the past two years, I have committed to training, by myself, six days a week, and I have continued my healthy eating.

I believe that the traits I learned through that experience have transferred into other areas of my life. The dedication and motivation that I put into my health, I apply to my education. I learned to set short term goals in the gym, and that taught me how to set long term goals in my life, specifically as it pertains to my pursuit of higher education. I understand that I can be wrong, how to acknowledge that I am wrong, how to change my goals, and the benefits of long-term dedication.

As a result of my experience with negative body image issues, I now recognize that I am not alone; there are many other young women who may be dealing with those same thoughts and feelings. I know that a woman's body-image can be distorted and the negative affect that it can has on her self esteem. In the UF community, I hope that my knowledge with this kind of dilemma might help other students who face the same challenges, and I would be eager to offer my help and guidance to those students.