To her Instagram followers, Tupper’s strict eating habits might have appeared normal.Clean eatingis popular on Instagram.
On the surface, it might sound like a healthy trend to participate in.
The truth: It’scomplicated.
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She recommends people who have a history of disordered eating avoid restrictive diets, period.
Unfortunately, that was Tupper’s experience with clean eating.
“I wished I could look like them, so I started to start eating less.”
That’s when Tupper turned to clean eating.
“Everyone on Instagram was talking about clean eating, eating single-ingredient foods,” she says.
“I thought, ‘Thats what I have to do to get the body I want.'”
Tupper created an Instagram account to document her clean-eating obsession.
She became more engrossed in the fad diet as she gained more followers.
She started avoiding social gatherings and school functions as she feared they would interfere with her strict diet.
If food wasn’t “clean,” she wouldn’t eat it.
Tupper’s situation is all too familiar to Kelly Uchima, 23, of Chicago.
“I really just wanted to become really fit and muscular,” Uchima tells SELF.
She started experiencing social anxiety, worrying about going anywhere where she couldn’t control her diet.
“I would barely go anywhere,” she says.
“Or, I would just go and not eat.”
And it’s a dangerous cycle.
A year ago, she wiped her Instagram account completely.
“It was all just clean eating really boring food and I didnt want it on the internet.”
Her new account has over 27,000 followers.
“In terms of my life, Im so much happier,” she says.
“Its liberating to say to your best girlfriends, ‘Do you want to go out for brunch?’
And she rebranded her Instagram account from a “fitspo” focus to “self-lovespo” focus.
“I started realizing self-love was what I need,” she says.
“When I looked my leanest is probably when I felt my worst.”
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Uchima regularly talks about her recovery and journey to body positivity on her Instagram page, as does Tupper.
In April, Tupper shared a before-and-after photo, labeled with #gainingweightiscool.
“What this picture presents is a girl overcoming her eating disorder,” she wrote in the caption.
Or, visitwww.eatingrecoverycenter.comto speak to a clinician.
Related:
Watch: What Everyone Gets Wrong About Eating Disorders
