Demi Lovato has opened up about her ongoing struggle with body acceptance.
The ‘Anyone’ singer was a guest speaker on model Ashely Graham’s podcast, Pretty Big Deal, where the duo had a discussion about body image.
“I’m tired of running myself into the ground with workouts and extreme dieting,” the 27-year-old said.
“I thought the past few years was recovery from an eating disorder when it actually was just completely falling into it. And I realized that maybe my symptoms weren’t as obvious as before, but it was definitely an eating issue,” Lovato, who has previously received treatment for bulimia, added.
Lovato told Graham that social media and the pressure to look a certain way can be triggers for her.
“I think when you have certain people around you that are telling you that you should look a certain way, it makes it harder,” she explained. “I was just running myself into the ground, and I honestly think that’s kind of what led to everything happening over the past years,” said Lovato, who was hospitalized in 2018 following an overdose.
“Me thinking I found recovery when I didn’t, and then living this kind of lie and trying to tell the world I was happy with myself when I really wasn’t,” Lovato explained.
“I made a choice going into this next album, ‘All right, when I present this, I’m not going to worry about what I look like. That’s just not who I am,’” she said.
“Someone needs to stand up for people that don’t naturally look that way,” Lovato said, noting that she previously “lived at the gym” and had been working out as much as three times a day to try to fit a certain mold.
“That led me only one way, and I don’t want to go down that path again. I’m not willing to destroy my mental health to look a certain way anymore,” she continued, adding, “That’s not happiness to me. That’s not freedom, and that’s not everything that I’ve worked for and that I preach to people. I just decided not to live that lie anymore.”
During the interview, Lovato noted that she works with multiple specialists to maintain and further her recovery, including a dietician and a therapist.
She also cited practicing jiu-jitsu as empowering and helping to take her mind off of body image issues.
“My faith has been renewed a lot over the past year and a half of my life,” Lovato told Graham.
“I think when you go through something that’s so life-altering, and when the end result is something that no one was expecting, I think that’s a miracle. And I think it’s a miracle I’m sitting here today," she said.
