Model Ireland Baldwin got candid Thursday about her past struggle with eating disorders, writing that all of the pain “wasn’t worth it.”
The 22-year-old daughter of Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger posted an undated photo of herself to Instagram captioned “Anorexia throwback.”
She also included a bikini shot from the back. “Nope,” she stamped on it.
“I battled with many eating disorders and body issues as a younger girl and it took me a long time to find self love and acceptance!” she wrote, according to several outlets. “Trust me, all of that pain and destruction I inflicted on myself wasn’t worth it. Turning down so. Many. Sides. Of. Fries. Wasn’t worth it!!”
Baldwin didn’t hold back in sharing difficult details.
“I would eat a meal or more like a bite and have to run to the nearest bathroom or find digestive pills or run until I couldn’t feel my legs right before bed,” she wrote.
She said when she first began modeling she would spend several episodes of a favorite TV show on a treadmill whenever someone wrote a negative comment about her size.
According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, at least 30 million Americans have an eating disorder.
The pressures in the modeling industry to be thin have exacerbated that trend.
In a study of 85 New York Fashion Week models published in 2017, 81 percent had a body mass index that was considered underweight. Yet 62 percent of the models said they were asked to lose weight while 54 percent said they were told they wouldn’t book any gigs unless they shed pounds. In addition, 57 percent of the models were recommended diet or exercise plans by their agencies and 9.3 percent were advised to undergo cosmetic surgery.
But Baldwin, who has modeled for Guess and earlier this year did an anti-fur campaign for PETA as her mother did decades earlier, offered a positive message to her followers: “Love yourself!! You are beautiful!! Enjoy your food. Eat ice cream with your friends! Work out and eat healthy to take care of your mind and body but find your healthy balance! Life is too short.”
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