Eiza González has opened up about a lifelong and deeply personal battle with body image.
She shared what she describes as her “complicated” relationship with her own body, one that began in childhood and was exacerbated by early fame.
The Mexican actress, 36, posted a candid message on Instagram on Wednesday, Feb. 25, accompanied by a carousel of photos spanning her younger years up until today.
The post, timed to coincide with National Eating Disorder Association-backed awareness week, was honest, detailed and clearly heartfelt.
González started with the loss of her father, who died in a motorcycle accident when she was just 12 years old.
“For most of my life, my relationship with my body has been complicated. It started at a young age, after the sudden death of my father, when I coped with depression by eating compulsively, trying to soothe pain I hadn’t processed,” she wrote.
At 13, she had gained 30 pounds in a short period of time and was navigating “grief, puberty and confusion all at once.”
Then came the limelight, and with it another kind of pressure.
At 15, González landed the lead role in Nickelodeon Latin America’s Sueña conmigoa show that quickly put her in front of audiences throughout the region.
“Every picture was dissected, every detail criticized and everyone seemed to have an opinion about my body, who I was and who I should be,” she wrote.
The study, she reflected, caused “deep self-dysmorphia” that “sent me down a painful path.”
She became obsessed with the scale, measuring her self-worth in “pounds” and asking herself if it would make others, or herself, like her more.
The approval she was chasing never came.
Instead, she wrote, opinions only multiplied. What she mistook for strength, reshaping herself to fit what others wanted, left her feeling more empty than before.
But her submission was not a defeat.
In addition to photos of her younger self, González shared photos of herself today, strong and working out at the gym, and the contrast was clearly deliberate.
“The one thing I learned from all of this is how powerful the mind can be and how much we can change when we put our will to it. The same energy you put into shrinking yourself or conforming to the standard can be used to build what you truly dream of being,” she wrote.
She ended up with both vulnerability and encouragement.
“I’ve become deeply committed to giving my body love, fueling it with kindness, care and respect so it can feel happy and fulfilled. I’m proud of where I am and the hard work it takes to break old patterns,” she concluded.
“I hope someone reading this knows that choosing yourself and honoring your body for the right reasons is far more meaningful than trying to be liked by others, even ourselves sometimes. I don’t like to pretend the journey is over, it’s hard, complex. But NEVER too late.”
