Jordana Brewster has found a “level of peace” with her body after battling an “extreme” eating disorder.
Jordana Brewster
The 41-year-old actress has struggled with both bingeing and restrictive eating in the past, and has explained her battle began shortly after she tied the knot with her former husband Andrew Form.
She said: "The first year of our marriage, I started to binge and developed an eating disorder. He was kind and safe and supported me. I knew something was wrong with me. I had no creative output or outlet. I felt isolated, and the passivity drove me crazy. While my husband worked a full day on set, I would do the occasional audition. I was bored.
"I would raid the mini bar at the Four Seasons for snacks and then promptly go downstairs to make sure it was restocked and paid for before my husband realized anything was missing. I had a buzzing sense of chaos within me that clashed with my actual inertia. I was stuck."
The ’F9’ star said her eating disorder “swung to the other extreme” a few years later when she began to “restrict rather than binge”, and her battle left her neglecting both her career and her marriage.
She added: "The cliché that controlling your food gives you the illusion of control of your life is true. But it also does something else: A fixation with your body gives you tunnel vision. I was so focused on the number on the scale and the number of calories I consumed in a day that I ignored all other problems. I didn't look closely at my career, my marriage."
Jordana – who has sons Julian, seven, and Rowan, five, with Andrew, whom she split from last year – underwent “years of therapy” to help her overcome her eating disorders, and now feels better than ever in her health.
She wrote in an essay for Glamour magazine: "Years of therapy helped me through my control and eating issues, and now I'm lucky to be at a level of peace with my body. If body issues do come up, I deal with them head-on."
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