Shaughna Phillips has opened up about her battle with an eating disorder.
The reality star rose to fame on last year’s winter edition of Love Island, where she was famously dumped by Callum Jones after met Molly Smith in Casa Amor.
In a new YouTube video, the 26-year-old revealed she had been weighing herself everyday after putting on weight over the lockdown, before detailing her past “really bad relationship with food”.
Shaughna said: “In 2016, 2017, I had a really bad relationship with food. I don’t really like to call it an eating disorder mainly because I think I’m just in a bit of denial.”
“Essentially, I did have an eating disorder. I got into some really, really bad habits. Like terribly unhealthy. I would literally be happy if I could go as long as possible without eating. I’d feel like I’d accomplished something.”
“If I did eat something, I’d feel like I’m an actual failure. I would be weighing myself constantly and I got really, really, really skinny.”
The Love Islander admitted that it wasn’t until she realised that a size six jumpsuit was too big on her, that she started to reflect on her bad habits.
Getting emotional, she said: “I remember looking in the mirror, think, ‘All my life I’ve wanted to be skinny and now I’m skinny. I don’t know how to stop it.'”
“I didn’t know how to fix the position I was in. It had taken over my life. Friends would always say to me, ‘There’s a problem, you’ve got a problem’, and I’d be like, ‘No I haven’t, I wish. I’m so big.'”
“I was always the big girl out of my friends, it was only after I got to such a low point and realised that no matter what I look like, I’d always still feel like the fat friend.”
Shaughna said that it look going to the gym to realise the importance of eating proper meals in order to exercise.
“It took a while to feel good about that, I would eat more because I wanted to go to the gym. Then I kind of fixed myself. I’ve accepted that what I was doing last week wasn’t healthy.”
If you have been affected by anything in this article, please visit BodyWhys.ie, or else call their helpline 01-2107906.
