Anne-Marie Has Opened Up About Her Tricky Body Image Journey: 'I Was Chasing This Body Perfection Th

Singer-songwriter Anne-Marie has confessed some all-too-relatable home truths when it comes to discarding body image myths learned during your teenage years, as well has her mental health journey after an ADHD and depression diagnosis.

In an interview with Women's Health, she described the body image narratives she picked up during her school years, and how a fixation with chasing “perfection” affected her happiness.

“I literally saw being popular in school [twinned] with having a good body. It was so weird," she said. "And I felt like I didn't, so [it] was my own fault for not being popular in school. And then obviously, that became an obsession with my looks... and when I was about 21...I wanted to be really, really skinny and I became really skinny.”

"I started hanging out with people who saw beautiful [as] meaning curvy. So then I was like: ’oh, now I need to be curvy. So I'm gonna eat more food.' I was just chasing this body perfection that just didn't exist. And I was not happy either way."

Anne-Marie also opened up about what health means to her now – after the release of her single, in collaboration with Shania Twain, named Unhealthy earlier this year – after navigating such toxic body image pressures in her younger years.

“Healthy to me right now means [a] healthy mind," she said. "I think because I have spent a lot of time doing diets and eating healthy and being alkaline and trying all these different things to help my body feel better. But I do think if your mind isn't right, no matter how you're eating, you're always going to just feel a bit rubbish about yourself.”

She credited therapy as invaluable in dealing with both depression and ADHD, calling it “a slow but amazing journey”, adding that she probably should've been in therapy since the age of sixteen, elaborating on her ADHD diagnosis in college.

When asked what she does to support her mental health, she had a brilliant and creative response. “Lego! I'm a Lego freak, like I have a whole town,” she answered "I've built a whole town in in my house. Yeah, that's going well, there's no space for it... I do a lot of cooking, grow vegetables, get massages."

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