We all know a “Julie” from our high school days. She sat behind me in freshman algebra and later, we shared a history class, and then, was it biology in our senior year? Julie is the girl with the pretty smile and lovely eyes. The one we whisper about behind her back. We say things like “she has such beautiful hair, if only she could lose some weight,” or “she has such a pretty smile, if only she could drop a few pounds.”

We all know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover — but we do.

Americans have many false perceptions of what makes a woman beautiful. When we’re young, in order to be beautiful, we wear false eyelashes, get our hair streaked and our teeth straightened. As we get older, to prevent aging, we get botoxed, dermaplaned, and our teeth whitened.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with wanting to look and feel your best, but you should concentrate on keeping fit – that means exercise. But, exercise for the right reasons, to build stamina and strength and to lower cholesterol. If you happen to lose a few pounds in the process, that is a lovely benefit.

I was surprised when I ran into Julie in the mall. We were both reaching for the same pair of jeans on the sale rack. She recognized me right away, calling my name, but I looked at her with a puzzled expression. Then it dawned on me. She was the “Julie” with the beautiful eyes who would be gorgeous if only she would lose some weight.

Now, here we were, both in our thirties (okay, I lie about my age a little). It had been more than 20 years since we graduated from high school and I, like most of our high school classmates, had added a few pounds. Scrutinizing Julie, I realized there was no way I could squeeze into those jeans. Julie had lost weight and “we” had been right, she looked gorgeous.

Julie purchased the jeans and we headed for the Food Court to catch up on old times. She told me that her struggle to lose weight began in high school. Being overweight had affected her self-esteem and that she hadn’t participated in any clubs or activities because of it. She told me how uncomfortable she had felt in her own body; how she had tried all the diets, the grapefruit diet, the Long Beach Diet, the Atkins Diet, and had joined Weight Watchers, only to watch her weight yo-yo up and down, but nothing seemed to work for very long. She had been consumed with trying to lose weight for her entire life.

As we reminisced over our vanilla lattes, I couldn’t help it. I had to ask her what her secret was, how had she lost all that weight and how she managed to avoid the middle-aged spread that threatened, not only my waistline, but was moving quickly toward my hips? She smiled at me with those lovely eyes and flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder.

Then, she leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “The secret to losing weight is simple,” she said. “One word — cancer. The chemo helped a lot, it made me so sick, I couldn’t eat anything for weeks.”

“It’s ironic,” she continued. “Nobody thought I was beautiful, really beautiful, until I was dying.” I know the shock must have registered on my face

Lynda is at a loss for words. She can be reached at lyndaabegg@charter.net. Opinions expressed in this column are reflective of the writer only and are not necessarily shared by the newspaper.