Lily Collins Overcame Anorexia and Bulimia so She Could Be Happy and Start a Family
Lily Collins is the daughter of the famous musician Phil Collins, so she’s known fame since childhood. But the girl always wanted to make her own way to success. She made her screen debut at the age of two and gradually started acting more and more. But Lily couldn’t escape a rather common phenomenon in her teenage years — dissatisfaction with her appearance.
As a young girl, Lily was self-conscious about her body. She shared a story of when, in school, she and her friends went swimming, and the girl ended up wearing men’s shorts over her swimsuit to hide what she considered to be flaws in her figure. That said, when the star now tries to figure out how she fell into the trap of complexes, she has no answer. After all, no one ever told her that she was unattractive or questioned her appearance. And yet, young Lily’s complexes ran wild.
Perhaps the cause was hidden in the stress of her parents’ divorce, her budding career, and the classic teenage girl angst. All this translated into an eating disorder. The girl started restricting her food intake, periodically losing control and overeating. Knowing that this was not a healthy habit, Lily was ashamed of it and hid it from everyone close to her.
One day, Lily realized that she eventually wanted to have a family and children. This was the pivotal point in her recovery. It’s very difficult to carry and give birth to children with weight gain problems. In her struggle to overcome anorexia and bulimia, Lily had tons of support from her mother and close friends. Since then, the star often states that asking for help is not a weakness but a strength.
Lily resents the central myth surrounding anorexia — that you just have to have a meal and it goes away. She knows that it’s not all that simple; it’s also about self-confidence. It wasn’t easy for Collins to learn to accept and love herself, but that’s exactly what saved her. It’s a never-ending process, though, as even now the star sometimes compares herself to celebrity photos in magazines, despite the fact that those pictures have been meticulously edited.
A very personal experience for Lily became the filming of To the Bone, in which she played a young woman trying to recover from anorexia. The actress had to lose weight for the role, but she did it with the help of a nutritionist to make sure it was safe for her health and so that she could put the weight back on after filming.
However, when she was losing weight, Collins received many compliments. And this upset her immensely, as this was not a question of beauty but of illness. But precisely, those reactions motivated her to give her all to the film because she wanted to raise awareness of the important topic of health and adequate body image for women.
Another therapeutic experience for the actress was writing the book Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me, in which Lily shared her story. She detailed how she was able to learn to accept and love her body, recover from an eating disorder, and realize that perfection does not exist. This book made her own experience more real to the actress herself. The star wanted other girls reading the book to understand that they’re not alone in this problem and that it’s possible to overcome anything.
Now Lily feels beautiful and happy. Her secret turned out to be quite simple: relinquish control and enjoy the moment. There are many things in the world that we have no control over, and if you accept that, life becomes much easier. In her spare time, Lily enjoys baking and often shows off her desserts on social media. Cooking has become an important part of her therapy, even a kind of ritual.
Lily overcame her complexes and learned to accept and love herself. And her story reminds us all of an important truth: “In the end, when you accept yourself for who you are, and you work with what you’ve got, you couldn’t be more beautiful because you’re confident and everyone notices.” And it’s hard to argue with that.
What helps you in learning to accept your body and love yourself?