Candace Cameron Bure previously battled an eating disorder during her teenage years.
“I developed an eating disorder when I was 18,” Cameron Bure, 49, said on the Tuesday, July 22, episode of her eponymous podcast. “It was binging and purging, like, I’m a bulimic. I still say I’m a bulimic because the thoughts, whether I’m doing that or not, never leave me. I still need the tools to say, ‘No, Candace, we’re not doing that.’”
The Full House alum further credited her husband, former hockey player Valeri Bure, with being an “incredible support” system amid her personal struggles.
“I feel, like, a broken record. I’m 49 years old, and I’m, like, ‘Why do I think about this so much? Why does it even matter so much? It’s so ridiculous,’” she said. “And yet, I’m still thinking about it [and] we’re here talking about it.”
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Cameron Bure added, “I’m glad we’re talking about it, but I just wish, in general, that this was not a conversation that we all had to have.”
According to the actress, she has “struggled” with her body image for a long time.
“I’m reading everything I can. I want all the information. There’s certainly been amazing things and tools that have helped me along the way, but there’s still nothing that has really changed my heart and soul on it,” Cameron Bure said. “I still constantly think about it. … It’s really vulnerable, but so many of us feel the same feelings.”
Cameron Bure further revealed that she had always been “put on a diet” starting from a young age, as were her mom and sisters.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, you have to lose weight.’ It’s just, ‘We’re gonna do this as preventative. We want to teach you how to be healthy and exercise,’” she recalled. “That completely shared the viewpoint that I had about myself, and the feelings about my body, like, ‘Oh, I have to make decisions because there’s a fear that I could develop an eating disorder because I’m on TV, because that’s the pressure, and I don’t want to be too fat compared to other actors because then producers might tell me that I need to lose weight.’ My parents never wanted a producer to come up to me and say, ‘We need your child to lose weight.’”
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Cameron Bure has previously been candid about how her disordered eating battle consumed her perception of self during her formative years.
“I knew I had a problem, but again, it’s like being on a runaway train and you wanna get off but you don’t know how to get off,” she told Entertainment Tonight in 2016. “I kind of lost my identity in a sense and what happened was I turned to food for comfort when my husband was traveling and when I was alone. I had a very unhealthy relationship with food that turned into bulimia. I dealt with it for several years, but it wasn’t about body image and trying to feel good. It was about trying to find comfort or fill voids within myself.”
Cameron Bure later had a moment of realization at church, seeking support from both her husband and her pastor.
If you or someone you know struggles with an eating disorder, visit the National Alliance for Eating Disorders website or call their hotline at +1 (866) 662-1235. Text “ALLIANCE” to 741741 for free, 24/7 support.
