Alix Earle revealed that she struggled with an eating disorder in high school while appearing in a candid episode of her podcast, “Hot Mess,” on October 5. The 22-year-old influencer explained how watching other peers “normalized” her unhealthy diet.
“In my mind, I knew that this wasn’t normal at first, but after watching their habits, and watching them lose weight and watching them be so satisfied over this, it became more normalized for me,” Alix said. “I went from someone who had a very healthy relationship with food very quickly to someone who did not.”
While recalling how “obsessed” she became with “dieting culture,” the University of Miami graduate detailed how “stressed” she would be, adding that her classmates would pay “thousands of dollars for these diets.”
“I just went down such a bad path with myself, with my body, with my image, and I started to have this sort of body dysmorphia [where] I would look in the mirror and I would see someone way bigger than the person that I was,” Alix said.
The social media star’s battle with eating disorder began by cutting down on school lunches as part of her “toxic cycle” to plan what to eat. She later started skipping meals altogether and eventually developed bulimia.
“At the time I didn’t understand what I had just started,” Alix insisted, adding that “no one knew that I was dealing with this eating disorder, and I didn’t really either. … A majority of the girls in my friend group in high school all had an eating disorder, [and] we all thought it was healthy.”
The podcaster then admitted that she would look for the “nearest bathroom” to throw up after feeling guilty for binge-eating. The eating disorder even affected her high school prom. In the weeks leading up to senior year’s biggest night, Alix did “not dare touch a single carb the whole entire month.”
“The day before prom, I did not eat anything,” Alix confessed. “I would just go on strictly, like, water diet, and the only thing I would eat was ginger [sic].” Right before joining her friends at the event, Alix remembered “feeling so light headed” but “content” because she believed that she was “doing something right” at the time.
Though she put a stop to binging and purging, Alix still limited her food intake. However, the TikToker’s college friends pointed out her unhealthy habits, which Alix credited helped her overcome her eating disorder.
“They were like, ‘Alix, you know that’s not healthy, that’s not OK,’” she recalled. “‘That’s not normal for you to think that or do that or restrict yourself from those foods, like that’s not healthy.’ And I was just so appreciative at the fact that I had girls telling me that, like, it was OK to eat, and we weren’t all going to be competing with our bodies.”
If you or someone you know struggles with an eating disorder, visit the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa & Associated Disorders (ANAD) website or call their hotline at (888)-375-7767 to get help.