This year marks the 15th year of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” So S.E. Cupp, a host for CNN’s “Crossfire” and a commentator for TheBlaze, took a moment to share in serious detail on the network’s website about her own bout with eating disorders. She also issued a warning to one of the show’s winners, Rachel Frederickson, about getting hooked on the dramatic weight loss and all that positive attention.
After all, Cupp had a friend in her Boston Ballet troupe who died at 22. She weighed 93 pounds.
An excerpt:
“Growing up as a student of classical ballet, I floated in and out of all kinds of unhealthy eating disorders. I experimented with bulimia, starvation, laxatives and diet pills. Dancers knew plenty of terrible tricks. We’d eat carrots and use the bright orange to mark when to stop throwing up before all the nutrients and energy we needed to dance were expended. We ate tissue paper to feel full. We were caffeine addicts –some even snorted it. Many smoked cigarettes and a few did drugs.”
Cupp admitted to being “impressionable” and “insecure” and says she spent her teenage years consumed with worries about being too fat.
Now older and wiser, she says she has her eating issues under control. It’s difficult being on TV. But she doesn’t let herself succumb to her former addictions. So no more “feverish workouts.” And she chooses being overweight as opposed to underweight.
As for being on TV, it’s not easy.
“I have a job on television now and the pressure to look good and stay thin is immense,” she wrote. “I simply don’t pay attention to it.”