- Film And TV
- 12 Oct 18
American actress Camila Mendes has just spoken in-depth in a new magazine cover story interview about her battle with bulimia.
The popular star, who has a staggering 12million followers on Instagram, has been open in the past by sharing online about her struggle with bulimia. But she has now given a detailed account of it all in a new magazine cover star interview with Shape magazine.
“I’ve struggled with bulimia. It happened a little bit in high school and again when I was in college,” 24-year-old Camila Mendes told Shape
“Then it came back when I started working in this industry with fittings all the time and watching myself on camera.
"I had such an emotional relationship with food and anxiety about everything I put into my body.
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"I was so scared of carbs that I wouldn’t let myself eat bread or rice ever. I’d go a week without eating them, then I would binge on them, and that would make me want to purge.”
Camila Mendes says she was always beating herself up. “If I ate a sweet, I would be like, ‘Oh my God, I’m not going to eat for five hours now.’ I was always punishing myself,” she said.
“I was even anxious about healthy food: Did I eat too much of the avocado? Did I have too many fats for one day? I was consumed with the details of what I was eating, and I always felt as if I was doing something wrong."
With professional help, she is now on the road to recovery. She says: "My nutritionist completely cured my fear of carbs. She was like, ‘You need a balanced amount of good, healthy carbs in your life. Have a piece of toast in the morning; have some quinoa at lunch. When you’re eating a little of them all the time, you won’t have this crazy urge to binge. You won’t be scared of carbs anymore because you’re going to realize that eating them isn’t going to make you gain weight.'”
Back in October 2017, Camila Mendes that told how she was inspired by her own experience to help out Project Heal, a nonprofit organization that raises money for treatment of eating disorders. Then the following February, she went public with her decision to stop dieting after seeking help.
“About a year ago, I got to a point when I realized I needed to see someone. So I went to a therapist, and she recommended a nutritionist as well, and seeing both of them changed my life,” Camila Mendes said.
“So much of the anxiety I had about food went away when I started learning more about nutrition. My nutritionist completely cured my fear of carbs. … She also cured my addiction to dieting. I was always on some kind of weird diet, but I haven’t been on one since. I’m very proud of myself.”
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Explaining why she has shared such personal information with her followers, Camila tole Shape magazine: “I realized that I have this platform, and young women and men who look up to me, and there is a tremendous power to do something positive with it.
“It was definitely a very vulnerable thing to put that out there to almost 12 million people on social media. But that’s who I am. That’s me being authentically myself.”