Sports
Dove Cameron Bravely Reveals Her Battle With Anorexia
“I thought I needed to be absolutely tiny to be loved,” she shares
Dove Cameron is always so open and refreshingly honest with her fans: but there’s one personal issue she has never revealed before. Over the weekend, Dove revealed that she has previously struggled with an eating disorder – and it really took a toll on her self-esteem and self-worth.
“I’ve never said this before, but I had such a bad case of anorexia. I was so badly down that hole,” she shared. “I was not eating for days sometimes. But it was because I thought I needed to be absolutely tiny to be loved. I genuinely thought I needed to be as skinny as I possibly could to be loved and appreciated and good enough.”
Dove also noticed many of her peers – especially other fellow actresses – going through the same situation.
“I started to watch some people that I knew personally go so far down the not-eating hole of trying to be so skinny,” she said. “Because that’s such a thing in Hollywood. We never want to say it, but it’s such a big thing. Girls try to be as thin as possible. Not all of them, but a lot of them. I realized that if I was going to be a role model then I needed to live like the girls that I needed when I was young.”
Fortunately, Dove is in a much healthier place in her life now, and is working hard to shrug off body-shamers, critics, and other sources of negativity.
“I’ve worked really hard to maintain health and a normality,” she shared. “And if someone wants to go on my Instagram and tell me that I am not as thin as I used to be, or I have a zit here, I don’t care about what that angry person has to say. What’s important is the freedom and the quality of my life. As long as my life is happy and healthy, so is my worldview.”
We’re so proud of Dove for both sharing her story – and influencing so many people with her positive new outlook.
