The Good Place alum Jameela Jamil has made a name for herself off-camera with social activism. The 38-year-old is specifically known for calling out potentially harmful practices around weight and body image on social media.
Jamil has a personal link to her activism — she’s been open about her past with an eating disorder, and the repercussions she’s still dealing with. Jamil just revealed on Instagram that she’s struggling pain due to bone density issues from her past with extreme dieting. “I’m so sorry to my body. I’m so embarrassed that I did this to you,” she wrote in a post. “You tried to keep me alive and I tried to kill you. I will spend the rest of my life fixing you and trying to stop others from hurting their bodies.”
Jamil is the founder of the platform and community I Weigh, which is trying to change the dialogue around how women measure their strengths and establish their self-worth. She previously told Samantha Skey, CEO of SHE Media, that it’s important to her to use her fame responsibly. “If you need to shame someone into thinking they need to buy your product, this is f*cked,” she said. “I think we’re all really waking up.” She encouraged women to work together to change the narrative around weight and body image. “Don’t turn a blind eye to each other,” she said. “You are fighting with and for one another.”
Jamil also recently opened up about her past struggles with body image and her current push for body neutrality on Sanjay Gupta’s podcast, Chasing Life. Here’s what she revealed about her own experience, as well as her advice for others around weight and healthy eating.
She’s still dealing with the effects of anorexia
“I had anorexia for about 20 years,” Jamil said on the podcast. “That was a very sad and very bad journey that was perpetuated largely by our culture with an obsession around female thinness. But also, I think my desire to feel like I could control something in a world that didn’t make me feel like I was … the boss of my own destiny, because I am a woman.”
Jamil says she’s been in eating disorder recovery for about nine years. “I’m going to get, probably, osteoporosis when I’m older,” she said. “Only one of my kidneys works because of everything I did to it during anorexia. I’ve got a malfunctioning digestive system. My teeth are not in the same condition they were before my eating disorder.”
She’s embraced body neutrality
Body neutrality is a different take on body image than body positivity. Jamil describes it as a “complete, almost divorce from my body. I don’t look at it any longer as a reflection of me. It is not an advertising billboard for other people. It is not there for them to judge. It’s not there for me to judge. It’s a vessel that carries around my brain — and now all I care about, genuinely, is my brain, my spirit,” she said.
Jamil acknowledges that her job tends to focus on how she looks, but that she’s able to separate that in her mind. “I feel very disassociated from my body when I’m doing that,” she said. “It’s like I’m dressing up a doll rather than me, myself. I’ve separated my identity from my aesthetic. And that took a long time, but has completely saved my life because now, whether I get bigger or smaller, I just don’t judge myself.”
She tries to focus on things other than her body
Jamil said that she prefers to think about things other than her body and what it looks like. “I would rather be thinking about all the fun that I can have before I die,” she said. “I would rather be thinking about my friends. I would rather be thinking about the world and how I could be helpful.”
She eats for health and pleasure
Jamil shared that she’s conscious about what she eats, both to maintain good health and enjoy what she’s having. “I only now eat for pleasure and longevity,” she said. “I don’t deny myself anything, but I eat foods that are whole foods, and I source them very carefully. And I take it very seriously the kind of chemicals that are going into my body.”
She focuses on exercise she enjoys
Jamil isn’t a big fan of exercise, but she makes a point to be active. “I walk an hour a day with my dogs, religiously, pretty much,” she said. “That’s the only exercise I do because I don’t really enjoy a lot of exercise. But I’m working on finding more enjoyable ways to move my body because I need to start strength training so that I can build up my bone density again. But currently, I just religiously walk, listening to music.”