I still struggle, but I know that getting help made me get to the place I am now.
I didn’t know I was struggling with orthorexia until I went to a psychologist. I thought I was being healthy by always choosing the most nutritious and “clean” options available, avoiding all of the foods that were high in sugar and saturated fats.
It began when I was 16, when I started to get into exercise and learning about the foods that would “make my body feel better”. I started following influencers who would talk about their healthy lifestyle, all the exercise they did, and what they avoided to stay fit. Just to push me even more, I was scouted by a modelling agency when I was 13, and was told to come back after I had matured. The thought of going back made me want to change my body so I could be good enough to model. I didn’t even know if I wanted to model but knowing that I could, as I’ve always been told that because of my height, always played in the back of my mind.
As the months of year 11 went on, I began to avoid more and more foods and exercise frequently. I lost my period during the start of year 11 and didn’t get it back until the middle of year 12. I didn’t really take much notice of this and didn’t think it was because of my eating habits – I thought it was more because of the stress I was going through at the time with girls at school. As a result of this stress from school, I turned to exercise and food as my safety net, putting all of my energy into that so that I never had time to think about the school drama. It led to me becoming obsessive over everything I ate and restricting myself. I started exercising over an hour every day of the week and would hate myself if I missed a day of training. Ultimately, the drama at school got to a point where my anxiety and stress increased exponentially and I turned to throwing my food up as a coping mechanism.
At this point I knew what I was doing was wrong, and that’s when I told my mum about what was going on. It felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders and I didn’t have to hide behind my fears anymore. I booked to see a psychologist who told me that I was suffering with orthorexia. It took me a very long time to get to the place I am now, and there are days where the idea of restricting and not eating anything “unhealthy” fills my mind. However, I have learned to be more intuitive with my eating and most days, I don’t think about food every minute of the day.
I still struggle, but I know that getting help made me get to the place I am now.
the skinny elephant 