May is recognized as Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States. The Mental Health America organization launched this awareness campaign in 1949. Since then, the organization has conducted themed activities in order to raise awareness and educate on mental health every year.

This year, as more people than ever deal with mental health struggles in the wake of the lockdowns and quarantines of the Covid-19 pandemic, many celebrities are using their platforms to help end the stigma. Several have even chosen give back by sharing their own struggles with mental illnesses. Actress Lily Collins is the latest celebrity to join in on this month's efforts, by sharing about her personal experience with eating disorders.

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In an Instagram post on May 15th, Collins wrote about how she feels about her own body sometimes, and encouraged her followers to be kind, as you can never really know what someone is going through mentally just by looking at them.

She also shared that her own struggles were the reason why she chose to work on the film To The Bone.

In To The Bone, which was released in 2017, Collins played the role of a young woman  seeking recovery from anorexia. Collins also opened up about her own eating disorders in her 2017 memoir, Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me. The book contained essays sharing personal experiences with her parents' divorce and her father's alcoholism, and how those things contributed to her disorder.

Collins wrote about how her father's absence left her feeling that she "wasn't enough," and so she plunged into extreme exercise and diet moderation. She also wrote that by her mid-teens, she had turned to diet pills and laxatives to lose weight. She had also began bingeing and purging on junk food.

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During the promotion for To The Bone, Collins explained why she felt that it was important for her to play the role of a character with an eating disorder and how the role complemented her memoir.

She told USA Today, "For me, it was a sign from the world saying, 'This is probably something that is actually bigger than you. There’s a larger thing in play here and both are going to be able to better inform one another.' When you have your life’s mission and the mission of a project merge like this so beautifully, that’s like total magic."

Collins is not the only star in Hollywood who has opened up about living with eating disorders. Singer Demi Lovato and Riverdale actress Camila Mendes have also discussed their experiences. Their voices help others who are struggling to know that they are not alone and to seek help.

Related: Fans React To Demi Lovato’s Eating Disorder Struggles In New Video

Eating disorders affect at least 9% of the global population, and about 28.8 million Americans are projected to have an eating disorder in their lifetime. It is counted among the deadliest mental illnesses.

If you would like more information and resources on eating disorders, please visit National Eating Disorders Association or National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders.

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