Her body was her life for a long time. Sophia Tell (26) has become a superstar in the German influencer scene thanks to her fitness videos and posts. But now the athletic model has revealed the sad background behind her bodybuilding career. “Yes, I have an eating disorder,” Thiel says in a new video.
As a young girl, she really developed a difficult relationship with food, explains the influencer. “I even slipped into the direction of anorexia during my school days.” At a height of 1.72 meters, it sometimes weighed only 50 kilograms. Then she finally discovered bodybuilding for herself. At first it was positive: “I thought I found the key for myself. In bodybuilding with this perfect approach, with this black and white thinking, I can shape my body exactly the way I want it.” But when the success came through social media, she gradually lost control: “I developed a strong eating disorder.”
“I was like a shark falling into bloodshed.”
Thiel suffers from “bulimia nervosa,” colloquially known as bulimia. Time and time again I fell into a true binge eating. The disease in it was “like the devil.” During bouts of insatiable hunger, it felt “like a shark dropping for blood.”
Her eating disorder also contributed to her taking a leave of absence in May 2019. But even after she moved to Los Angeles and took a break from social media, she still couldn’t control the problem. It was only when I started in psychotherapy that she found her way out of an eating disorder: “It was the best thing I could ever do. I would recommend it to everyone.”
She has now written a book about her struggle with bulimia. In the future, too, she wants to use her reach to address sensitive topics like eating disorders or depression in public: “It has to be a cool thing to talk about.” And: “I might just want to offer some help in order to find a solution for myself or some suggestions for action.” (to talk)
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