Tess Holliday, an American plus-size model, has recently revealed that she is taking a social media break after dealing with a few “livid and angry” messages from people questioning her anorexia diagnosis.
The 35-year-old model, who shared over the weekend that she is “anorexic and in recovery,” said on Instagram last week that “the last few days have been some of my toughest to date since becoming a public figure.”
In a recent interview with Good Morning American (GMA), Holliday said that she has “had a lot of messages from folks that are anorexic that are livid and angry because they feel like I am lying. I am plus-size but advocating for diversity in larger bodies, and so I think, for people hearing me saying I’m anorexic was really jarring.”
Holliday, who is also a makeup artist, has recently been diagnosed with anorexia. However, she has struggled with an eating disorder for most of her life.
She said, “I always thought that I overate. But then people in my life would say, ‘Oh yeah, I eat more than Tess,’ and it was almost like I wore it as a badge of honor.”
The model is now working with a dietitian who has been helping her to focus on eating three meals a day and has taken up Pilates.
Holliday said she is “feeding my body regularly for the first time in my entire life,” which caused her to lose some weight, which eventually led to comments on her changing size from followers on social media, which is why she shared her eating disorder diagnosis and asked then to refrain from commenting anything on her body.
“The disconnect in peoples’ minds about the possibility that she would have anorexia is part of a bigger issue with society’s understanding of eating disorders,” Holliday said.
“I understand that people look at me and I don’t fit what we have seen presented as the diagnosis for anorexia,” she added, “but then for me, that tells me that there’s a larger problem which I’ve actually been saying for years, which is that we have a lack of diversity and representation in the world.”
Holliday said that she is now in a far better place than she was a year ago.
She told GMA, “I mean, the sky is the limit. I actually feel like I can take on the things that life is throwing my way, and I have been happier in the last six months, through my recovery, than I’ve been in my entire life. I feel whole. I feel at peace. I really feel in my power.” The article was published on PEOPLE.
