The night Alexa PenaVega was eliminated from “Dancing with the Stars” in 2015, she had gathered up the courage to speak about her eating disorder for the first time. The actor opened up to her professional dance partner Mark Ballas about what made her obsess over her weight. She revealed that she was shooting a movie earlier in her career when her bosses developed an unhealthy fixation on her figure. “The producers kept telling me, ‘You’re too fat,'” she recalled, as recapped by E! News. Because of those cruel words, Alexa developed bulimia. It took her six years to recover from the eating disorder and she never could completely rid herself of her body image issues.
Alexa’s horrible experience came back to haunt her when she was trying to conceive. Her doctor assured her that her struggle was unrelated to having an eating disorder for such a long time, but Alexa was still plagued with guilt. “I was worried that I wasn’t getting pregnant because of some long-term damage from what I’d put my body through,” she told Fit Pregnancy and Baby. While she was over the moon when she learned that she was expecting, she told People that there were downsides to being pregnant — her patience was rewarded with terrible morning sickness and exhaustion. “There were days when I just wanted to sleep all day long, and I did,” she said.
If you need help with an eating disorder or know someone who does, help is available. Visit the National Eating Disorders Association website or contact NEDA’s Live Helpline at 1-800-931-2237. You can also receive 24/7 Crisis Support via text (send NEDA to 741-741).
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