Bella Hadid reflects on battle with eating disorder

Bella Hadid has candidly discussed her battle with an eating disorder as a teenager.

In an interview for the April 2022 issue of U.S. Vogue magazine, the model recalled how a psychiatrist prescribed her a stimulant medication when she was at high school, thinking she may have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

However, the medication ended up suppressing Bella’s appetite and led to her battle with anorexia nervosa.

“I was on this calorie-counting app, which was like the devil to me. I’d pack my little lunch with my three raspberries, my celery stick. I was just trying, I realise now, to feel in control of myself when I felt so out of control of everything else,” she recalled.

Bella went on to insist that she now abides by a balanced diet, though still struggles with body dysmorphia.

“I can barely look in the mirror to this day because of that period in my life,” the 25-year-old revealed.

Elsewhere in the conversation, Bella candidly discussed how constant comparisons to her sister Gigi Hadid and being diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease in 2012 affected her mental health. Her condition had deteriorated to such a point in early 2021 that she discovered she was completely burned out and checked herself into a treatment programme where she sought out therapy and different medication.

“For so long, I didn’t know what I was crying about. I always felt so lucky, and that would get me even more down on myself. There were people online saying, ‘You live this amazing life.’ So then how can I complain? I always felt that I didn’t have the right to complain, which meant that I didn’t have the right to get help, which was my first problem,” she mused.