Britt Nilsson just got married, you guys!
As happy as we are that the woman who appeared on The Bachelor and was briefly a co-Bachelorette, she"s sharing some troubling news about the history of her health.
As she discusses in the clip below, she"s suffered from addiction issues and from bulimia. And apparently her time on The Bachelor made things even worse.
Britt Nilsson appeared as a contestant on Chris Soules" season of The Bachelor.
This was just a couple of years ago.
Now she"s married, to a man named Jeremy Byrne.
In an appearance on The Doctors, Britt talks about her compulsive binge eating and how she used bulimia "like a bandaid" to avoid gaining weight from her compulsive habit.
When we talked about her wedding, we commented that their guests must have really loved the couple to commit to a wedding on a farm that doesn"t allow alcoholic beverages of any kind.
We now understand why that wasn"t a dealbreaker for Britt and Jer — as part of Britt"s addictive compulsions includes binging on alcohol just as she might on anything else.
So, yeah, a dry wedding undert those circumstances makes sense.
(Just because Britt can control herself doesn"t mean that doing so isn"t torture; let her enjoy her wedding)
Britt also gets into the way that the environment on The Bachelor was an exacerbating factor for her compulsive issues.
"Behind the scenes, there"s food everywhere."
Alcohol is often featured on those shows. Bachelor in Paradise recently enacted a 2-drink maximum per hour to deter binge drinking after this summer"s scandal.
It"s easy to see how food could also be a problem.
"It"s very high stress fitting into these really tiny ball gowns in front of millions of people"
We can only imagine.
"I felt more of a need to be perfect than ever."
Britt is gorgeous and has an incredible figure, but we have to remember that a disease like bulimia doesn"t allow people to view themselves objectively.
Britt took steps to keep her disorder a secret while on the set.
(Warning: this gets a little gross)
"I remember taking my mic off, hiding it under towels and throwing up."
Yeah, that"s gross.
She"d try to shame herself into stopping.
"Then [I"d look] in the mirror like: "You are going to get caught. You are such a mess. What are you doing? Stop, stop, stop" — and I couldn"t."
It didn"t work.
This plagued her after she left the show, too.
"I was doing a lot of modeling and as soon as we wrapped I would just start eating everything."
After-work meals are fine. Compulsive, unhealthy ones? Not so much.
"I made a vow to myself about two years ago after the show. I did a lot of soul-searching and I was like: "You know what? No matter what, I"m never throwing up again.""
That can"t have been very long ago. But good for her.
It"s relatively easy for people to recognize and understand bulimia and anorexia for what they are.
In one of them, you"re throwing up all of the time. That"s about as recognizable as illnesses get.
In both, you"re depriving your body of much-needed nutrients in ways that are detrimental to your health and can even eventually be fatal.
As you watch the video below, you might find that certain things sound like you — even if you don"t have an eating disorder.
Like, Britt talks about how her husband can have just one beer at a time without feeling a compulsive desire for more.
For me, I"m the same way (I don"t like beer; but with any alcohol)
She says that he can have just half a bag of chips at a time, and while I can certainly do that, I think that most of us have only planned to have a few chips and suddenly found that we"ve devoured a bag.
The same thing with eating everything in front of her simply because it"s there.
As her husband describes, that"s a normal thing — but for Britt, it"s a compulsion.
Scientists have linked the activity (or inactivity) of a particular gene to when people feel satisfied by their meals.
Some people eat a moderate amount of food and then just … stop, feeling satisfied. Other people eat until they"re full. Others, still, eat until they feel stuffed, and don"t feel satisfied until they do.
Even those in that third category don"t necessarily develop the compulsive eating habits. Others mitigate it with exercise, or by choosing their food carefully.
(Yes, you can absolutely "binge" on salad)
It"s good that Britt is finding ways to mitigate her disordered eating.
And can we just say that it"s also great that her husband is so supportive of her?
Watch this video and see what we mean:
It"s relatively easy for people to recognize and understand bulimia and anorexia for what they are.
In one of them, you"re throwing up all of the time. That"s about as recognizable as illnesses get.
In both, you"re depriving your body of much-needed nutrients in ways that are detrimental to your health and can even eventually be fatal.
As you watch the video below, you might find that certain things sound like you — even if you don"t have an eating disorder.
