Camila Mendes: ‘Bulimia turned me into an anxious mess’

Actress Camila Mendes’ past bulimia battle was so bad she’d starve herself if anything sweet passed her lips.
The 24-year-old Riverdale star has opened up about her eating disorder battles in the new issue of Shape magazine, revealing she had two separate struggles – one in high school and the second in college.
“Then it came back when I started working in this industry with fittings all the time and watching myself on camera…,” she explains. “I had such an emotional relationship with food and anxiety about everything I put into my body.
“I was so scared of carbs that I wouldn’t let myself eat bread or rice – ever. I’d go a week without eating them, then I would binge on them, and that would make me want to purge.
“If I ate a sweet, I would be like, ‘Oh my God, I’m not going to eat for five hours now’. I was always punishing myself. I was even anxious about healthy food – ‘Did I eat too much of the avocado? Did I have too many fats for one day?’ I was consumed with the details of what I was eating, and I always felt as if I was doing something wrong.”
Camila eventually got to grips with her problems after seeking out a therapist last year (17).
“I got to a point when I realised I needed to see someone, so I went to a therapist, and she recommended a nutritionist as well, and seeing both of them changed my life,” the actress adds. “So much of the anxiety I had about food went away when I started learning more about nutrition.”
And now when she feels bad about the way she looks in a moment of weakness, she looks towards her role model Rihanna.
“I’m seeing all these people who I look up to, like Rihanna, open up about their weight fluctuations and loving themselves the way they are,” she smiles. “That makes me love myself more too.”