Lily Collins Weight Loss: Truth About Her Eating Disorder

Lily Collins is in the news again, and this time it’s about her weight. Photos from a recent event show her looking thinner than fans are used to seeing. People online started talking right away. Many brought up her past eating disorder, which she has spoken about openly since 2017.

This article does not try to guess what is going on with her body. Instead, it uses her own words. Here is what Lily Collins has actually said, over the years, about her eating disorder, her recovery, and why she keeps talking about it in public.

Why Lily Collins Weight Loss Is Trending Right Now

Lily Collins walked at a Calvin Klein fashion show, and photos from the event spread fast online. Many fans thought she looked much thinner than in her past appearances. Some people got worried. Others brought up her long history with anorexia and bulimia, which she first shared with the public years ago.

Not long after, Collins posted on her Instagram Story. The timing lined up with Eating Disorder Awareness Week. She did not talk about the photos or her current weight at all. Instead, she reflected on her eating disorder and what recovery has looked like for her.

People captured the post and quoted her describing the experience of sharing her story as “one of the most terrifying but rewarding” parts of her life.

That is really the story here. A public figure chose, on her own, to talk about a hard part of her past. That is very different from strangers online guessing about her body from a handful of photos.

The truth is, nobody outside her close circle knows the full picture of her health right now, and that includes anyone writing an article about it.

Her Eating Disorder Started When She Was 16

Collins first spoke about this publicly in January 2017. She was at the Sundance Film Festival to promote her new movie, To the Bone, and she told reporters it was the first time she had ever talked about her past in public. It was a big moment for her, and one she had clearly been building up to for a while.

Later that year, she wrote about her experience in more detail in her memoir, Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me. She said her eating disorder began at age 16, around the same time her father, musician Phil Collins, divorced her stepmother. She has described that period of her life as confusing and painful.

At the same time, she was trying to launch two careers at once, acting and modeling, and both put constant attention on how she looked.

She has said that controlling her food felt like the one thing she could manage when everything else in her life felt shaky. Over time, that turned into anorexia and bulimia. She has also talked about over-exercising during those years, on top of restricting what she ate.

In an open letter she wrote for Glamour, Collins explained why she keeps returning to this topic instead of leaving it in the past. She said it “got easier and easier to say it aloud every time” she talked about it. She hoped to remind people that eating disorders can affect anyone, and that nobody going through one should feel ashamed or alone in it.

Playing a Character With an Eating Disorder

In 2017, Collins starred in the Netflix film To the Bone, playing a young woman in treatment for anorexia. Given her own history, the role hit close to home in a way most parts don’t.

To get ready, she didn’t just lean on her own memories. She met with real experts too. Reporting from Fox News at the time noted that she spoke with doctors from UCLA’s eating disorder program to learn more about the condition.

She also sat down with young women who had gone through treatment themselves and listened to their stories.

Collins has said the film ended up helping her heal in a new way. She had already been in recovery for several years by the time she took the role, but making the movie gave her a chance to look back at her past with fresh eyes.

She has described the whole process as a new kind of recovery, on top of the one she’d already been through.

Recovery Isn’t Something You Finish, She Says

Almost ten years after first speaking out, Collins still brings up her eating disorder regularly. Most years, around Eating Disorder Awareness Week, she posts about it again in some form.

Her message hasn’t really changed over time. She says recovery isn’t a box you check off once and never think about again. It’s something you keep working at, year after year. She’s credited support organizations and films like To the Bone with helping her connect to other people who understand what she went through, so she doesn’t feel isolated in it.

She’s been fairly clear about why she keeps sharing her story instead of letting it stay in a memoir from 2017. She’s said that if talking about it helps even one person feel less alone, it’s worth the discomfort of bringing it up again and again.

She Isn’t the Only One Talking About This

Collins is one of a fairly long list of women in Hollywood who have opened up about their own eating disorders over the years. That list includes Demi Lovato, Zoe Kravitz, Portia de Rossi, Candace Cameron Bure, Zosia Mamet, and Ginger Zee, among others.

Part of why so many people relate to these stories is that eating disorders are more common than most people realize. According to the NIMH, close to 9% of people in the United States will deal with some kind of eating disorder at some point in their life. That works out to roughly 28.8 million Americans. It can affect people of any age, size, gender, or background, not just people in the public eye.

Her Next Big Role Has Nothing to Do With Weight Loss

While the weight loss headlines were spreading, Collins was also dealing with a very different kind of news. She’s set to play Audrey Hepburn in an upcoming movie about the making of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, based on a book by Sam Wasson. She confirmed the casting herself on Instagram, saying the role had been almost ten years in the making for her. It’s a project she’s been quietly working toward for a long time, long before any of this recent attention on her appearance.

If This Story Brings Up Something for You

Reading about someone else’s eating disorder can stir up a lot of feelings, especially if you’ve dealt with something similar yourself. That’s a normal reaction, and it doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you.

If that’s where you’re at right now, help is out there. The National Alliance for Eating Disorders runs a free helpline staffed by licensed therapists who specialize in this exact area. They can help you find treatment nearby, no matter what stage you’re at or what your situation looks like. You don’t need a formal diagnosis to call, and you don’t have to sort through this on your own.

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