Actor Sana Saeed, best known for her roles in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Student of the Year, recently opened up about growing up with the eating disorder bulimia. She revealed that she struggled with the condition for years before she understood what she was actually going through.
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On Thursday, Sana took to Instagram and shared a video in which she said, “I cannot constantly want to hide and eat or be worried that he’ll (her husband) enter my room and think that I’m overeating. I remember when I started reading the book, I was like… because you’re so scared, you finally know what the problem is. And you don’t want to face it. You’ve lived with it for so many years, you think something is absolutely wrong with you. I remember telling myself, ‘Okay, it’s some sort of an eating disorder. But it’s not this,’ because it was so difficult for me to admit to myself that I had bulimia. I never heard about it growing up. I wish I’d heard about it, so I would have gone straight to the problem.”
In the caption, Sana revealed that she has now fully recovered and credited the book The Bulimia Help Method for helping her through the process. She wrote, “I didn’t know I had an eating disorder for years. Not because I wasn’t suffering, but because I had never heard the words. Growing up, nobody talked about it. There was no language for what I was going through, so I carried it silently and alone for a long time. When I finally read about bulimia, I understood for the first time what was happening to me. And even then, the shame of admitting it, even just to myself, took years to move through.”
She added, “I’m sharing this because somewhere out there someone is carrying something they don’t even have a name for yet. And I want them to know, it has a name. You are not alone. And there is a way through. I am fully recovered and I have never felt more at home in my body or my life.”
Bulimia is an eating disorder characterised by repeated episodes of binge eating followed by compensatory behaviours, such as self-induced vomiting, fasting or excessive exercise. People with bulimia are often intensely concerned about their body weight or shape, but they may appear to be at a typical weight, making the condition difficult to recognise.
Sana is best known for playing Anjali Khanna, the daughter of Shah Rukh Khan’s and Rani Mukerji’s characters, in the 1998 blockbuster Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. After taking a break from films to focus on her education, she returned to the entertainment industry with Student of the Year (2012). She later participated in several reality shows, including Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa, Nach Baliye, and Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi.
