Beanie Feldstein has recently talked about how she “felt a lot of pressure from society” to lose weight growing up.
In an interview with Vogue, the 28-year-old actress revealed her struggles while trying to meet society’s beauty standards.
She told Vogue, “It was clear to me that I was chubby and that I was bigger, and for a long time, because I was a kid, I would do what the adults were telling me to do, which is to try to not be that way.”
Feldstein shared that she turned to diet programs, such as Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers, between the ages of 11 and 13 so she can lose weight.
“I think I felt a lot of pressure from society, from my family, from my community,” the Lady Bird star said. “Then around 16 or 17, I just thought, ‘I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me.’ One day I realized, ‘I’m not the problem. This standard is the problem.’”
Feldstein also discussed body expectations in musical theater. She is currently starring as Fanny Brice in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl.
She told Vogue, “I have friends who used to have to ‘weigh in’ for their musical-theater programs. That should be illegal.”
Feldstein wrote an essay for Refinery29 in 2017, detailing her struggles with weight loss.
She shared at the time, “My family, doctors, and society at large were constantly telling me that I was too heavy, that I needed to exercise more, that I should be smaller.”
“I was pushed into trying Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig… and I absolutely hated it,” Feldstein continued. “It affected me deeply I despised trying to lose weight and I resented everyone that made me feel like I had to.”
She began to shift her way of thinking and since then, she became “genuinely comfortable with my unwavering chubbiness.”
The Booksmart actress added. “I realized that once I stopped trying to get closer to what our society deems ideal, I felt free. I was so far from the norm that I felt no pressure to get anywhere close to it.”
