FLORIDA, MIAMI: TikTok Star Alix Earle opens up about her three-year battle with eating disorders. Gen Z icon shares her painful journey with bulimia and anorexia.
Alix Earle, the 22-year-old TikTok sensation, has bravely disclosed her long and grueling battle with debilitating eating disorders. In an emotionally charged revelation, she shared how her relentless pursuit of being "paper thin" during her high school years led her into a harrowing ordeal of bulimia and anorexia.
Recognized as the queen bee of Gen Z, Alix Earle candidly discussed her "toxic relationship" with food, detailing her preoccupation with calorie counting and efforts to "work them off."
This personal revelation occurred on her podcast, 'Hot Mess with Alix Earle,' marking the first instance where she publicly addressed her battle with eating disorders.
Alix Earle 'toxic' relationship with food
@alixearle This was really stressful for me to put out but thank you guys so much for your support 🫶🏼 @Hot Mess with Alix Earle ♬ original sound - alix earleAlix Earle, a graduate of Red Bank Catholic High School in 2019, revealed her journey from having a healthy relationship with food to becoming fixated on extreme diets.
During her high school years, she observed her peers skipping meals and adopting strict diets, which normalized diet culture for her.
Alix found herself bringing salads or fruit for lunch, convinced that even a single bite of carbs or a bit of dressing was too "fatty." This pattern led to an obsessive calorie-counting habit from ages 16 to 18.
She said, "This is something very personal and that I haven’t really talked about online before."
She commenced the episode by acknowledging that she was a "very different" person during her high school years compared to who she is now because she lacked confidence and used a tough exterior as a coping mechanism.
She said, "Growing up, I never really had a problem with food, that was never really talked about in my family. I had never thought that women need to diet or eat healthy, I just thought [you should] eat what you want, eat what you love.".
When Alix was 16-18 years old, she used an app to track the number of calories she ate every day.
"I would get stressed out if the numbers went too high," she added.
She explained, "I was so obsessed with this dieting culture, I just went down such a bad path with myself, and my body, and my image. I started to have this body dysmorphia, I would look in the mirror and see someone way bigger, and I was never happy with the person I saw in the mirror. I would constantly pinch the sides of my hips, pinch my arms."
Alix continued, "I wish I could go back and hug myself because all that started to run through my mind, was food, calories, how to make meals small when I'm going to workout next."
Skipping meals at school led to binge eating at home, accompanied by feelings of guilt and subsequent purging. Alix detailed how she turned to making herself throw up, initially perceiving it as a clever strategy rather than recognizing it as an eating disorder.
She confessed, "I ate nothing at lunch, so I would come back home starving and eat everything."
After she binged, she would feel so guilty for eating and her mind would go "a million miles per hour trying to calculate how many calories I just consumed."
She then turned to making herself throw up to feel better about binging.
"If I just made myself puke, then I wouldn’t have to deal with this," she recalled.
"At the time, I didn’t understand what I had just started, this wasn’t me aware that this was an eating disorder, I didn’t know that other people who had eating disorders did this, I thought this was so clever," she added.
The breaking point
Her struggle with bulimia intensified, and she became preoccupied with identifying the right moment to purge. Eventually, her mother caught on to her actions when Alix emerged from the bathroom with red eyes after dinner, although Alix lied about it.
She felt her struggle was unnoticed because many of her peers were grappling with the same issues, all driven by the desire to be "paper thin."
"I lied straight to her face," the social media sensation said.
"We wanted to be paper thin," she said before adding that even wearing a skirt as a part of her school uniform made her feel insecure because she felt as though her legs weren't 'thin' enough.
She described the "worst" part of her battle - adding that it heightened when 'prom season' came along as she thought she "couldn't touch a single carb the month before" the event.
Alix's ordeal reached its peak during 'prom season' when she felt compelled to avoid carbs entirely in the month leading up to the event. The day before prom, she embarked on a water-only diet and consumed ginger when hunger struck, all in a desperate bid to have a "flat" stomach.
A turning point in college
Alix Earle revealed that her obsession with food gradually faded when she entered college. Making friends who helped her establish a healthy relationship with food was pivotal in her recovery.
She stressed the importance of having supportive friends who understood her struggles.
Eventually, Alix's obsession with food just "went away" when she got to college.
The friends she made in her freshman year of college taught her how to have a healthy relationship with food after she shared her eating habits with them.
She added, "It’s been hard for me to comprehend it myself and I’ve only told it to a handful of people in my life. 'I knew I needed to stop and I did.'"
Today, Alix Earle is the healthiest she has ever been, and her body is in its best shape. However, comments about her weight still trigger memories of her high school days. She wishes she could travel back in time to offer her younger self the guidance and support she needed.
Alix Earle's candid revelation serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of mental health awareness and support, particularly among young individuals grappling with eating disorders.
Internet users commended the TikTok sensation for opening up about her struggles. One user expressed, "Thank you for sharing such a difficult conversation and being real!"
While the other user wrote, "u are such a light. more people being open about talking about eds helps reduce stigma and help people feel less alone."
Another user wrote, "Please never stop being you."
