Fatima Sana Shaikh, who has been promoting her upcoming film Gustaakh Ishq with Vijay Varma, opened up about the mental disorder she has been dealing with for years. Fatima had to gain weight for her debut film Dangal, in which she played a wrestler. As years passed, Fatima moved on, but her “love-hate” relationship with food has taken a toll on her mental health.
What Fatima Has Told About Bulimia
"I have had a love-hate relationship with myself, and I've been addicted to a certain image of myself. I've had a toxic relationship with food. I put on weight in Dangal because I had to. When I'm goal-oriented, I'd do everything. I was training for three hours, so I had to consume 2,500-3,000 calories every day for me to gain weight. When the movie got over, I wasn't training as much, but I was still having 3,000 calories because I was used to it," revealed Fatima on the podcast Chapter 2 with Rhea Chakraborty.
She even revealed that she battled bulimia for two years. "My understanding of diet was so rigid. That I have to consume only these many calories in a day. Even now, I think about food all the time. I'm always hungry. But I've gotten awareness of it because that unhealthy relationship has been changing for years," said Fatima.
"Food became my comfort space. I could eat nonstop for hours. I hate myself because I have no control. I operate in extremes. Just a couple of days ago, I kept eating for two hours. Then I'd go in starve mode. In fact, it was so disabling that I wasn't stepping out of the house," Fatima went on.
She recalled an instance when her friend and Dangal co-star Sanya Malhotra called her out on this unhealthy relationship with food. But Fatima didn't realize where she was going wrong. "Then I felt shame. I felt I'm doing something that's not right. It's damaging my mental health," confessed Fatima. She also thanked another friend, screenwriter Rahul Mody, for introducing a healthier diet to her.
"Overeating isn't the issue. But the issue is in you because you're insecure and eating your feelings. You just want to be numb. It's like doomscrolling. You feel nauseous by the end of it," pointed out Fatima. "It's just that you're weak in the mind. Whenever someone has a mental health disorder, everything seems fine on the outside. All the demons and dark thoughts are within you, and you're dealing with them all by yourself," she added.
Fatima's Work
On the work front, Fatima Sana Shaikh was seen in the Netflix film Aap Jaisa Koi alongside R Madhavan. She was also an integral part of the sequel to the 2007 film Life in a... Metro.