Melanie Lynskey has accomplished a lot during her decades-long career. Although the 45-year-old got her first acting role at 15, starring alongside Kate Winslet in Heavenly Creatures, Lynskey has recently taken on major roles, such as playing Betty Gore in Candy and Shauna in Yellowjackets. Spending time in the spotlight has led the actress to scrutinise her body, and finding acceptance has “been a very long journey,” she told The Skimm in a recent interview.
Melanie Lynskey talks about accepting her body
“I fought against it for a very long time, the shape that my body is supposed to be,” she said. “It’s hard to be a size 10 next to a size 0.”
It’s not the first time Lynskey has opened up about her relationship with her body. She’s discussed struggling with an eating disorder in the past too. “I don’t remember a time before food was the enemy,” she recently told Vulture, noting that she’s had “eating issues” since she was 12. Reading issues of Vogue as a young teenager and being in the public eye once her acting career began contributed to the pressure she felt to be “thin, confident, [and] pretty,” she said in the Vulture interview. It led to extreme dieting and forcing herself to throw up if she ate more than her allotted daily calorie count, she explained to the magazine.
Lynskey began to recover from her eating disorder with help from a former boyfriend, according to Vulture. And recently, experiencing motherhood and having a miscarriage have helped her to embrace her body exactly as it is, she told The Skimm.
“A couple of years ago, I had a miscarriage, and I just didn’t really recover from it physically,” she said. But being a mom to a young daughter gave her a different perspective, Lynskey told The Skimm. “I need to be kinder to myself and accepting and [say] sorry to my body for what it just went through,” she explained. She also wants to be “a positive example” for her daughter, showing her “what it looks like to have a mother who is just accepting of her body.”
Now, she seems to be in a much better place on her journey toward accepting her body, and she’s not afraid to speak up when people, especially strangers on the internet, question her. Earlier this year, she took on Twitter trolls who commented on her body, writing, “Most egregious are the ‘I care about her health!!’ people…bitch you don’t see me on my Peleton! You don’t see me running through the park with my child. Skinny does not always equal healthy.”
The story of my life since Yellowjackets premiered. Most egregious are the “I care about her health!!” people…bitch you don’t see me on my Peleton! You don’t see me running through the park with my child. Skinny does not always equal healthy https://t.co/W2poMmsv1p
— Melanie Lynskey (@melanielynskey) January 29, 2022
Lynskey is certainly correct that being skinny doesn’t necessarily mean you’re healthy. “I think it’s just good for women to see different shapes and sizes,” she told The Skimm. “I want to be representative of what a lot of women in the world look like.” Cheers to that!
If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, NEDA’s toll-free, confidential helpline (800-931-2237) is here to help.
This story first appeared on www.shape.com
(Main Image Credit: msmelanielynskey/Instagram; Feature Image Credit: Getty Image)
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