Zoe Kravitz Opens Up About Battle With Eating Disorders

Actress Zoe Kravitz recently opened up about her four-year battle with anorexia and bulimia in her teens.

"I was bulimic and anorexic in high school,” said the 26-year-old daughter of rocker Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet. “I felt as though food had this power over me. Instead of looking at food the way you should, to be thankful that it nourishes your body, it becomes an enemy in some strange way, which is a really sad thing, and it's a lot about anger."

The X-Men: First Class actress said her eating disorder began at age 13 when she would compare herself to models and women in magazines. "I was mad that I didn't look like the girls in the magazines and I was torturing myself,” she said. “I didn't feel attractive."

She eventually sought therapy, but it didn’t help until she was finally ready to get well. “I relapsed and relapsed,” she said. “Then it got to the point where I had to make the decision for myself that I would stop. You have to want to be done.”

As an adult, she has maintained her recovery with exercise and healthy eating. “Now I work out and try to respect my body. I'm not skinny, I'm a foodie,” she said.

Last year, Kravitz spoke about revisiting her history with eating disorders while playing an anorexic and bulimic woman in the film The Road Within. “I've struggled with it myself in the past," she said. “There are a bunch of images that are thrown in our faces all the time about what we're supposed to look like at 14, 15, 16. It's confusing. I think every woman can identify with that struggle."

The actress also had to lose 20 pounds for the role, which she tried to do “in the healthiest way possible.”

"I did a cleanse," she said. “I ended up drinking clay.”