Taylor Swift reveals her battle with an eating disorder in her new Netflix documentary Miss Americana.
The 30-year-old singer spoke about her issues with food in the film, which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival on Thursday night, explaining that sometimes trolls' comments about her appearance led her to "starve a little bit".
"(If I'd see) a picture of me where I feel like I looked like my tummy was too big, or... someone said that I looked pregnant... and that'll just trigger me to just starve a little bit - just stop eating," she said.
Further explaining why she'd decided to speak publicly about her eating disorder, Taylor told Variety that it was the film's director Lana Wilson who made her realise that it "made sense" as part of the documentary.
"My relationship with food was exactly the same psychology that I applied to everything else in my life: If I was given a pat on the head, I registered that as good. If I was given a punishment, I registered that as bad," she explained.
"I remember how, when I was 18, that was the first time I was on the cover of a magazine... And the headline was like 'Pregnant at 18?' And it was because I had worn something that made my lower stomach look not flat. So I just registered that as a punishment. And then I'd walk into a photoshoot and be in the dressing room and somebody who worked at a magazine would say, 'Oh, wow, this is so amazing that you can fit into the sample sizes. Usually, we have to make alterations to the dresses, but we can take them right off the runway and put them on you!' And I looked at that as a pat on the head. You register that enough times, and you just start to accommodate everything towards praise and punishment, including your own body."
However, Taylor added that she's been able to conquer her eating disorder now that she's "really happy".
