Hilary Duff (Houston, USA, 34 years old) literally and metaphorically stripped naked for Women’s Health magazine. The How I Met Your Father actress has spoken candidly about the complicated relationship she’s had with her body over the years. He did it in the US version of the magazine last May and has now done it again for the Australian edition. In the latter, Duff has admitted that the “terrible” pressure of being a certain height as a teenager led her to deal with an eating disorder at the age of 17. Now, she says, she’s reached a point where she fully accepts her body, whether it meets Hollywood standards or not.
Hilary Duff rose to fame at the age of 14 when the Disney Chanel series Lizzie McGuire (2001-2004) aired. Despite only having two seasons and one movie, the fiction gained worldwide fame and turned its protagonist into a teen idol. So much so that today, 20 years later, a new season is being prepared. Simultaneously and always connected to the Disney universe, Duff launched a successful music career.
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During that time, the star explains, he began to become obsessed with his body. “Because of my career, I couldn’t help but think, ‘I’m in front of the camera and the actresses are skinny.’ It was awful,” he told the magazine.
The actress has returned to the limelight in recent months thanks to the sitcom How I Met Your Father (available in Spain on Disney+). But as he says, he now knows how to deal with media attention with greater composure and has developed a new relationship with his body. “I think the older I get, the more confident I am. My body comes in many different shapes and sizes, and I am primarily fascinated by being a woman. And also all the changes your body can go through over the course of life,” he explained.
Duff gave this interview to a magazine specializing in sports and physical well-being. Her statements are accompanied by photos of the actress nude (in the American version) and in a bathing suit (in the Australian version) with a body that perfectly fits Hollywood standards. His profile is rounded off by statements from his personal trainer, who praises his performance in sport. “I value my health, I do activities that make me strong instead of just improving my looks,” the actress explains to the magazine. “I spend time with people who make me feel good and who share similar beliefs about health and body positivity, get enough sleep, and eat a balanced diet.”
So the story Hilary Duff tells in the magazine is not so much that of a person who has given up conforming to the standards of a normative body, but rather that of a person who has overcome an eating disorder. She still takes care of herself, she explains, but she’s not obsessed like she was as a teenager. “I think at 34 I’ve gained a lot of respect for my body. It took me everywhere I needed to go. It helped me build a beautiful family,” explains the actress. Duff has three children. The first, nine-year-old Luca, was the result of her first marriage to former hockey player Mike Comrie, from whom she split in 2014. The next two, Violet, three, and Mae Mae, one, were with her current husband, musician Matthew Koma, whom she married two years ago. “I love this chaos,” he told People magazine a few months ago about his large family. “Even if I have help because I work a lot and have babysitters, sometimes it’s never enough. And the kids always want their mom, it seems like I’m the only one in the room.”