real conversation. Riverdale’s Camila Mendes open about recovering from her eating disorder — and how her body image issues worsened when she landed a starring role on the hit CW series.
“I would watch every episode and be like, ‘Oh my God, there’s my stomach.’ I was so insecure and it really fueled my eating disorder,” Mendes, 28, said during the Thursday, Jan. 26 episode of the Going Mental With Eileen Kelly podcast. “I’ve had one at various points in my life. A little bit in high school towards the end of last year and then it came back to college. And then the first season of Riverdale came back. And that’s because when you’re in your early 20s, your body sways. My body hadn’t calmed down Ito yet. And I was like looking at myself and picking myself apart. My stomach, my arms, my chin – everything – I would be obsessed.”
The Do Revenge star, who has portrayed Veronica Lodge on the teen drama since the series premiered in 2017, explained that her off-camera struggles often got in the way of her job while filming Season 1, saying, ” It’s really f— ks with your process and your ability to show emotion and be authentic.”
Mendes admitted that at the time she was “really scared of eating carbs” and “would avoid it.” [them] for a long period of time. Then I would eat and eat a bunch and then void.
She explained that it’s been a “horrible cycle,” adding that she began seeing a nutritionist to help overcome her fear of certain foods. “She [the nutritionist] helped me overcome that by reintroducing bread into my life to say, ‘Look, it’s not going to kill you.’”
Mendes has often spoken candidly about her struggles with body image over the years. In February 2018, the Virginia native announced she was done with the diet after realizing “being skinny” had become “more important than being healthy.”
“I recently saw a naturopath for the first time in my life. I told her about my anxiety about food and my obsession with dieting,” she wrote on Instagram at the time. “She posed a key question in a way that touched me: What else could you be thinking about if you’re not thinking about your diet all the time? I suddenly remembered all the activities I love that used to take up my time.”
The Palm Springs actress shared that keeping a small frame has started to “consume” her to the point where there’s no room to focus on other “worries.”
“Somehow I’d rid myself of all the pastimes that brought me joy, and all that was left of me was my anxiety about food,” she continued. “My passion for education, cinema, music, etc. – all the interests that used to occupy me – had been eaten up by my desire to be skinny and it made me miserable.”
Last year, Mendes described how other women in her family struggled with eating disorders in the same way she did.
“Growing up, I watched my big sister suffer from one for many years, and I went through periods in my life where I suffered from symptoms as well,” she said, noting that she became involved with Project Heal joined — which provides grants for people with eating disorders who can’t afford treatment — to “break the stigma attached to eating disorders.”