How Being an Instagram Star Nearly Made a Model Anorexic
Becoming an Instagram star can make you millions of dollars in a matter of a few months. But, one Instagram model is telling all in a recent video.
Model Essena O'Neill, who recently quit Instagram reveals the dangerous ways she dieted in order for the Internet approval.
Essena O'Neill uploaded "You're My Inspiration" video on her new website.
The 19-year-old revealed measures she took to achieve a "Dream" body. O'Neill revealed she severely restricted her calorie intake by having "really, really small meals" or "skipping them entirely".
She would also look at photos of models on other social media networks and save them as her mobile phone screensaver to be her "inspiration".
O'Neill said she had 'A lot of the time they were tanned with tight stomachs, firm breasts and nice slim thighs,' she said. 'Thigh gaps were a big thing when I was younger.'
She added: 'I would look at these images and I would put them on my phone screensaver and I would use them as a reminder to be strong, and strong to me at that time meant skipping meals. It meant eating as [little> as I could.'
Then her problematic eating issues, became reinforced as many other people called her body an inspiration.
'It's very heartbreaking to think that maybe young girls would have done the same thing to people before me,' she said.
'That whole cycle of 'love yourself' that a pretty, beautiful model is telling you that...Come on, I can't be the only one seeing the insanity in that. How easy is it for me to upload a picture like this and say, "Morning run, breakfast smoothie, have a good day"? They were the captions I was putting up. I'd be like, "love your body, treat your body with respect". But my self-love was just how I looked in images. I personally didn't have a relationship with health and fitness that wasn't aesthetics based.'
Essena argues that other fitness bloggers are encouraging people to be healthy but she was actually killing herself.
'How is this even glorified?' she said. 'There are so many inspirational, beautiful, loving, full-of-life beings that don't meet these impossible standards. And they deserve to feel beautiful. [...] I can't say I'm an inspiration for meeting society's impossible standards for women.'
Essena O'Neill currently has over 570,000 Instagram followers, over 250,000 followers on YouTube and around 60,000 dedicated Snapchat contacts.
But, the working model decided to quit social media in order to expose the dark side to being Insta-famous.
She now hopes to initiate a movement where an individual's worth cannot be determined by how they look or how many followers they have, giving people the opportunity to be free and learn from others instead.
