Camila Mendes is opening up about her past struggles with bulimia.
The Riverdale star is continuing her healthy conversation about being #DoneWithDieting and the eating disorder that changed her life in the November cover issue for SHAPE magazine.
Related: ‘Riverdale’ Stars Camila Mendes & Charles Melton Are IG Official!
On using her platform to be transparent about body issues with fans, Camila shares:
“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,” the cover star says. “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.”
The actress reveals that her relationship with food became “anxiety inducing” as she navigated her growing career through high school and college:
“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. 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. 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.”
Mendes credits regular therapy and building a relationship with her nutritionist for helping her breakup with her dieting addiction:
“The voices in my head never completely go away. They’re just way quieter now.
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.”
“This body-positivity movement we’re having right now is so amazing, and it’s helping me so much. I’m seeing all these people who I look up to, like Rihanna, open up about their weight fluctuations and loving themselves the way they are. That makes me love myself more too.”
Cami, you’re a beautiful soul and we love you!
Read more of Mendes’ body-positive thoughts and journey to happiness in the November issue of Shape, HERE.
[Image via Brian To/WENN.]
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