Dove Cameron Bravely Reveals She Struggled With Anorexia

Dove Cameron is bravely opening up about her eating disorder for the first time.

The 21-year-old actress just revealed that she battled anorexia when she was younger but changed her life to become a better role model.

“I’ve never said this before, but I had such a bad case of anorexia. I was so badly down that hole. 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 told StyleCaster at a Tic Tac event.

She added that she soon discovered that many of her other friends in Hollywood were also battling eating disorders, saying, “I started to watch some people that I knew personally go so far down the not-eating hole of trying to be so skinny. 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.”

Dove said she reached a breaking point when she began to see those girls give health advise to their fans, telling them that they maintained their bodies through healthy eating and exercise.

“They were telling little girls that if they just watch what they eat and run that they will look like that and that they should look like that and that that’s the picture of health. It made me so personally upset. That’s a blatant lie. That’s not OK. That’s not a role model. 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,” Dove said.

Thankfully, Dove is now living a healthy lifestyle and doesn’t care what anyone has to say about her appearance.

“I’ve worked really hard to maintain health and a normality. 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,” Dove concluded.

We’re so proud of Dove for opening up about her experience!

If you are battling an eating disorder, please contact the National Eating Disorder Association for help on their website or by calling 1-800-931-2237.