Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty
Beanie Feldsteinis getting candid about her relationship with her body.
TheLady Birdstar, 28, revealed that she struggled to meet society’s beauty standards in an interview withVoguepublished Tuesday.
Feldstein said that she turned to diet programs such as Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers from 11 to 13 years old to help her lose weight.
“I think I felt a lot of pressure from society, from my family, from my community,” she shared. “Then around 16 or 17, I just thought, ‘I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me.’ One day I realized, ‘I’m not the problem. This standard is the problem.’ "
The actress — who is currentlystarring as Fanny Bricein the Broadway revival ofFunny Girl, which officially opens April 24 — also discussed body expectations in musical theater.
“I have friends who used to have to ‘weigh in’ for their musical-theater programs,” she toldVogue. That should be illegal.”
In 2017, Feldsteinwrote an essayforRefinery29in which she detailed her struggles with weight loss.
RELATED VIDEO: See an Exclusive First Look at Beanie Feldstein and Jane Lynch in Rehearsals for Broadway’s “Funny Girl”
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“My family, doctors, and society at large were constantly telling me that I was too heavy, that I needed to exercise more, that I should be smaller,” she shared.
“I was pushed into trying Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig… and I absolutely hated it. It affected me deeply,” she continued. “I despised trying to lose weight and I resented everyone that made me feel like I had to.”
When she began to shift her way of thinking, she said she became “genuinely comfortable with my unwavering chubbiness.”
“I realized that once I stopped trying to get closer to what our society deems ideal, I felt free,” she wrote. “I was so far from the norm that I felt no pressure to get anywhere close to it.”
source: people.com
