Renee Olstead Quotes

When I was anorexic it just seemed like I literally wanted to disappear. And now I would like to reappear.

When I was 19 years old, I came down with anorexia. I had it for about a year before it became public. And it had a lot to do with my self-esteem.

There are so many people who have eating disorders or who body shame themselves every day or have some sort of insecurity, and I feel like I have a direct reach to some of those people.

I think it would be fair to say that most female dancers have dealt with, whether it's an extreme, or minor complex in eating disorders. So the first thing I would say to girls who are feeling that way is you're not alone. You're far from alone. You're the majority. There's absolutely nothing wrong with what you're feeling.

I unwittingly became sort of this anorexia spokeswoman.

I dare anybody to look at me and say I'm anorexic. I'm so totally not.

Oh my God, I'm not anorexic. I acknowledge that I look thin in photos. I get it.

I've never personally been anorexic.

Honestly, I never thought I would ever tell anyone that I had an eating disorder. It was my deepest, darkest secret.

I couldn't be anorexic because I like food too much, and I couldn't be bulimic because I hate throwing up too much.

I don't think there's going to be a day when I don't think about food or my body, but I'm living with it, and I wish I could tell young girls to find their safe place and stay with it.

If I like myself at this weight, then this is what I'm going to be. I don't have an eating disorder.

Anorexia was there for me before I got into modeling, but because of the arena and the demands, the disease really got out of control for me. It's like being an alcoholic and going and being a bartender.

I used to refer to myself as a 'theoretical anorexic,' just as crazy when it came to body image, but saved by a lack of self-discipline. My daughters do everything better than I do - they're smarter, more beautiful, happier. What if they end up better at anorexia, too?

What is this drive to be thinner, prettier, better dressed, other? Who exactly is this other and what does she look like beyond the jacket she's wearing or the food she's not eating? What might we be doing, thinking, feeling about if we didn't think about body image, ever?

Anorexia taught me to love life and to realise that starving yourself to death is a bloody waste of time. It's awful, and it hurts so many people around you. It's a terribly selfish thing to do.

In New York, if you weigh under 200 pounds and decline so much as a cookie at a co-worker's party, women will flock to your side, assuring you of your appealing physique. This is how skittish we are about the dangers of anorexia and the pressures of body image.

Most dancers have no awareness of how they look; half of them think they're fat. There is anorexia in the ballet world; there are those things.

I didn't appreciate the young woman that I was, or my young beauty, because I was so obsessed with the fact that I felt fat. It's never good to add to anybody else's suffering. It's an important topic to really get the gravity and the importance of - dealing with dignity.

I think my anorexia was to do with being a teenager, not being in films.

When I was growing up, I was teased for being too skinny. I went to summer camp when I was 11. I wore shorts, and the nurse said to me, in front of all my friends, that I was anorexic and that she had to monitor me to make sure I was eating. Because of that trauma, I never wore short pants or short skirts until I was 20.

As a teen, I was both anorexic and bulimic.

I could be like everyone else and stop eating, but that wouldn't make me happy.

I suffered from eating disorders when I was just a kid. I did not like me or the way I looked. But back then, you could not tell anyone.

I always felt that anorexia was the form of breakdown most readily available to adolescent girls.