Charli D’Amelio says TikTok contributed to his eating disorder

The D’Amelio show has finally debuted on Hulu, and in it, TikTok stars Charli and Dixie D’Amelio speak candidly about their relationships, social media pitfalls, and mental health. In a mid-season episode of the series, 17-year-old Charli reveals that her rapid rise to fame on TikTok, where she now has 123.5 million followers, came with many challenges – one being his “unhealthy relationship” with food.

Charli discusses her unhealthy eating habits when her friend, social media star Quen Blackwell, shares her own story with eating disorders. “My body image was so bad,” Quen says. “I was anorexic about two years ago because of social media. According to Quen, she is just one of many influential people struggling with an eating disorder. “I have been to several of my friends’ pantries and there is baby food,” she says. “Where’s the baby?” Where is the child?

In a faith-based interview, Quen offers his own reasoning as to why eating disorders are so prevalent among influencers. “This unhealthy relationship with food is so common because no one feels in control,” she says. Charli tells. Sitting by the pool with Dixie and their friends, the dancer explains how negative comments influenced her food intake. “Every time I started TikTok for the first time… I was in very poor health,” she says. “I would lose a lot of weight, then I would gain a lot of weight, then I would lose it, and my comments would change accordingly.”

She remembers times when she was bingeing and making herself sick, followed by a prolonged fast. “It was really bad,” she says. “You can see it because I’m little, so when I gain weight people are like, ‘Oh, you’ve gained weight,’ and then they’re like, ‘Oh, she lost so much weight, she has. looks so good. ‘ At his lowest weight, people would blame him for having “skin and bones.” “I let it get to me and wish I hadn’t,” she admits.

This is not the first time that Charli has spoken of an eating disorder. After sharing a TikTok to the tune of Bad Bunny’s “Prom Queen” in September 2020, she apologized for potentially triggering her followers by using a song with a line on calorie counting. “I have always tried to use my voice when it comes to body image issues, but I have never spoken of my own struggles with eating disorders,” he said. she writes on her Instagram stories. “It’s so uncomfortable to admit even your closest friends and family, let alone the world.”

While this was the first time Charli had publicly discussed her own eating difficulties, she told her followers to stop talking about her body in April 2020. “It’s not for you to tell me if I lose. weight or if I am gaining weight, ”she wrote. in a series of tweets. “Why don’t we all be respectful and understand that we should just be nice and uplift everyone instead of trying to put others down? “

Now Charli is managing her eating habits better, but it wasn’t easy. “It is extremely difficult to go from a very unhealthy state of mind with food to a healthy state of mind, especially when you have dealt with it on your own for so long,” she says in the episode before moving on. admit that meeting other influencers who have been through the same thing has helped. “At least now I have friends that I can talk to and it’s made me work a lot harder to regain a healthy relationship with food.”

If you or someone you know has an eating disorder and needs help, call the National Eating Disorders Association hotline at 1-800-931-2237, text 741741, or chat online with a helpline volunteer. here.