How to Avoid Eating Disorders

One of the major pitfalls about modeling is that it models seem to attract eating disorders like dogs attract fleas. It makes a certain degree of sense; they want to stay thin and those disorders help them stay that way. Bulimia is probably endemic of the situation; it allows the model to eat anything she wants, and not deal with the calories it may have entailed. However, there are ways to avoid them.

Obviously the first is to eat healthy. If you eat healthy in the first place and back it with exercise you can get away with occasionally splurging; eating six sundaes at one sitting is not advised, but one should be okay every so often. Diets tend to be more forgiving than you would think, and will be there for you when get back. Don't splurge too much, but do splurge once in a while; life is too short to not enjoy it once in a while.

Another is to have friends outside of the business. If everybody you know is in the business you are, you tend to get competitive, and that competition increases the likelihood that you will do whatever it takes to get an edge on them, no matter how much damage it does to you. An eating disorder is a weird way to get an edge, but sadly it is an effective one. If the issue is that you just don't seem to be in the same place long enough to set down roots, then you need take advantage of the internet and find some friends that way. You don't need to use your real picture, and can get away with just a random picture; you don't need to let anyone know what you look like in real life, and that's an advantage if you are trying to create a new identity.

Don't forget to have a hobby. You need something that takes you out of your actual life, at least for a little while. It doesn't need to be something active, such as a sport or exercise; just taking up sewing, reading books, or even getting addicted to discussion groups ma be just enough to take your mind of your modeling career and take the edge off some of the stress that leads to eating disorders. Better yet, if you have the right hobby, then you kill another source of stress: What you do when you stop modeling.

If you do fall victim to a disorder, then there is therapy available, and you can cure it that way,  even though it may take time, you'll need to stop modeling for a while, and it may be expensive. However, there is the possibility that it will come back, and you'll need to deal with it again. It's a cycle that can be rather vicious and expensive, especially if you somehow get several at the same time. It may just be better to find a way to avoid it in the first place.