Real talk. Riverdale’s Camila Mendes opened up about recovering from her eating disorder — and how her body image issues were exacerbated when she landed a lead role on the hit CW series.
“I would watch every episode and be like, ‘Oh my God, my stomach there.’ I was like, so insecure, and it really fueled my eating disorder,’ Mendes, 28, said during the Thursday, January 26, episode of the “Going Mental With Eileen Kelly” podcast. “I had one at various points in my life. A little bit in high school toward the end of senior year and then it came back in college. And then it came back season 1 of Riverdale. And it was because, like, when you’re in your early 20’s your body is fluctuating. My body hadn’t settled Ito itself yet. And I was like, looking at myself, picking myself apart. My stomach, my arms, my chin — anything — I would obsess over.”
The Do Revenge star, who has portrayed Veronica Lodge on the teen drama since the show premiered in 2017, explained that her off-camera struggles often got in the way of her job during the filming of season 1, saying, “It really f—ks with your process and your ability to emote and be authentic.”
Mendes admitted she was “really afraid of eating carbs” at the time, and “would avoid [them] for a long period of time. Then I would binge and eat a bunch and then purge.”
She explained that it was a “terrible cycle,” adding that she began seeing a nutritionist to overcome her fear of certain foods. “She [the nutritionist] helped me overcome that by reintroducing bread into my life to be, like, ‘See, it’s not going to kill you.’”
Mendes has often gotten candid about her struggles with body image over the years. In February 2018, the Virginia native revealed she was done with dieting after realizing that “being thin” had become “more important than being healthy.”
“I recently went to a naturopath for the first time in my life. I told her about my anxiety around food and my obsession with dieting,” she wrote via Instagram at the time. “She phrased a pivotal question in such a way that struck a chord with me: what other things could you be thinking about if you didn’t spend all your time thinking about your diet? I suddenly remembered all the activities I love that used to occupy my time.”
The Palm Springs actress shared that maintaining a small frame had begun to “consume” her to the point where there was no room left to focus on any other “concerns.”
“Somehow I had stripped myself of all the pastimes that brought me joy, and all that was left of me was my anxiety around food,” she continued. “My passion for education, cinema, music, etc. — all the interests that used to occupy my mind — had been eaten away by my desire to be thin, and it made me miserable.”
The previous year, Mendes detailed how other women in her family had struggled with eating disorders in the same way she had.
“Growing up, I watched my big sister suffer from one for many years, and I’ve experienced periods in my life when I’ve suffered symptoms as well,” she said, noting that she was joining Project Heal — which provides grant funding for people with eating disorders who can’t afford treatment — to “help break the stigma associated with eating disorders.”