Jinger Duggar turned to her older sister, Jana Duggar, when she first began confronting an eating disorder.
“I remember one time I was talking to my older sister, and I broke down and told her, I said, ‘I think I’m struggling with this because I really don’t want to eat food that’s going to make me fat,’” Jinger, 32, told her sister Joy-Anna Duggar during the Wednesday, October 14, episode of their “Call Your Sister” podcast. “I said, ‘I think I’m avoiding that.’ I told her that, and I was weeping.”
Jinger struggled with disordered eating during her teenage years. She first opened up to Jana, now 36, after becoming anxious about attending a conference with her family.
“I went on a trip to one of those Journey of the Heart things [before], and I remember I saw a girl who struggled with bulimia, and she was literally sickly and she had so many health issues,” Jinger recalled. “She looked terrible because her body was withering away and she was in a terrible place. Ultimately, I was looking at her and I’m like, ‘Just stop doing that,’ as I’m over here doing the same thing in a different way ’cause I did not have bulimia … but I was avoiding everything.”
Courtesy of Jinger Duggar/Instagram Jinger Duggar has learned to develop a “healthy relationship with food” after struggling during childhood. “I think, for me in particular, [my people-pleasing tendencies were] definitely something I was so insecure [about] for so many years, which led me to some bad places,” Duggar, 31, said during the Wednesday, January 15, episode […]
Seeing the girl’s health problems made Jinger realize she did not “want to do that” or “end up like that.”
“I remember talking to Jana and maybe Jill [Duggar] was there too, but I told ’em, I said, ‘I don’t want to do this, and I want to get accountability,’” Jinger said. “We were not at home, so when I got back home, I told Mom everything, that I was struggling [and] how I was avoiding food. She met me with such grace and kindness and she said, ‘Jinger, I struggled with bulimia when I was young.’”
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Speaking with her mother, Michelle Duggar, ultimately left Jinger feeling “reassured.”
“She was not like, ‘Oh my goodness, here’s three cheeseburgers, eat them all,’ but she was like, ‘No, it’s OK, you can eat healthy food and be healthy,’” the Counting On alum explained. “She also said, ‘You don’t need to avoid food because that’s going to harm your body later.’ And so, she got me on an accountability track.”
Jinger Duggar has spoken openly about the difficulties of growing up in the TLC spotlight and moving beyond the conservative teachings of her childhood. One of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s 19 children, Jinger was raised as a follower of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, a fundamentalist organization founded by […]
With Michelle’s support, Jinger began using her phone to keep track of what she ate each day.
“I was one of the first ones to get a phone in the family, [and Mom] said, ‘Text me when it’s time to eat [and] you text me everything you ate,’” Jinger recalled. “She would also check in on me. So, we were eating meals, but if she was gone, I would text her and I would have accountability from somebody else who was there, like, ‘This is what I’m eating.’”
If you or someone you know struggles with an eating disorder, visit the National Alliance for Eating Disorders website or call their hotline at (866) 662-1235. Text “ALLIANCE” to 741741 for free, 24/7 support.