"I found out that I have destroyed my bone density.”
Jameela Jamil opened up about the long-term impact of anorexia.
During an appearance on Kelly Ripa’s podcast Let’s Talk Off Camera, the 38-year-old said her eating disorder started at a young age after she had to weigh herself in front of her class for a school project.
Although she started eating more regularly at the age of 19, Jameela said she “still didn’t eat a proper meal until I was 30”.
Jameela confessed that she used to take “so many laxatives” and turned to any diet that she could find to lose weight.
Speaking about the laxatives, she said:
“I’m amazed I even still have an a**hole, to be perfectly honest.
“It’s a real trooper. It’s a survivor. I took any pill or drink or diet that Oprah recommended. I did it. I took it. You know, any very low-calorie supermodel diet.”
She revealed that not only did they impact her physical health at the time, they have hurt her body now.
Jameela elaborated: “I f***ed up my kidney, my liver, my digestive system, my heart.
“And most recently, I found out that I have destroyed my bone density.”
Jameela Jamil acknowledged that although she “loves blaming other people” for her eating disorder, she knows that she cannot do that.
She noted that while she could also “blame society” for how she treated herself during her anorexia, she still takes accountability.
Jameela also fired back at the societal standards that have been placed on women, while addressing why she needs to be open about her past.
She continued: “And I’m so sorry to my body that I have jeopardised my future so severely for a beauty standard and to try to fit in with other people.
“And that’s why I’m so annoying, publicly, about eating disorders and diets.
“Because there’s so much talk about the dangers of being in a bigger body and there’s no talk almost about the dangers of not eating enough, only eating too much.”
Jameela emphasised that it is “really dangerous” when people stay quiet about their health, specifically when they’re not eating enough.
She said: “We have no idea the way that people’s fertility is f***ed, the way their long-term health is f***ed.
“We just don’t talk about it and it’s an inconvenient truth that the diet industry kind of squashes.”
Jameela Jamil began her career on Channel 4, hosting T4 from 2009 until 2012.
She confessed that at the time, her “TV career was my part-time career and my full-time career was staying thin”.
She added: “Thinness is a form of assimilation, especially for women.
“I had never planned on being in the showbusiness industry and I can’t think of a worse industry for me to have entered with a history of eating disorders, given that to assimilate you’re supposed to be thin unless you want your identity to be the fact that you stand out for not being thin and that is the only thing we talk about.”
Jameela Jamil then shared the message that she wants to put out about eating disorders, concluding:
“So I want to be someone who reminds people to eat. Don’t eat for your waistline now, eat for your longevity later.”
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