How Faith in Jesus Helped Sadie Robertson Defeat an Eating Disorder
By Allyson Vannatta, Senior Writer
Sadie Robertson opened up about how her faith in God helped her defeat her eating disorder.
Robertson recently appeared on ET’s Unfiltered video series and recalled the time she spent on ABC’s DANCING WITH THE STARS.
The DUCK DYNASTY alum was only 17 years old when she went on the show, and detailed how everyone among her family, friends, and fans on social media talked about the change in her body after the show wrapped.
“During Dancing With the Stars, you work out so much and you’re dancing 24/7, so no wonder you have the body of your lifetime!” she told ET. “I had this body that I never thought I’d have. I had a six-pack for two weeks, but then Thanksgiving hit and it went away. People started to comment.”
“They were such innocent comments at first, like, everything was great. But whenever my body started looking a little different, that’s when the struggle came in,” she continued. “There were people in my life, who were just really negative influences, that would say things that were not uplifting about the way that I looked and how I needed to maintain the body that I had.”
Robertson quickly developed an eating disorder because of how she viewed her body.
“I would look at myself in the mirror and I would think, ‘I’m fat,’ and I was not at all.”
The thing that helped her defeat the scary disorder was her faith.
“I pretty much just took the word as it was from the Bible. It talks about how you’re beautifully and wonderfully created,” the newlywed explained.
“I started praising God and thanking him for the way that I looked instead of looking in the mirror and saying, ‘Ugh, I wish my arms were thinner, I wish my legs were more toned, I wish I had her eyebrows’ … whatever it was that I would tell myself,” she shared. “Instead I would tell myself, ‘I am so thankful that I have this. I’m so thankful that my legs actually serve the purpose that they should and that they’re able to run, that my arms are able to carry things. That my stomach one day, hopefully, will be able to carry a baby.’ Just what we’re actually designed and created for.”
Robertson’s stance on beauty has changed over the years, where now she believes inner beauty is what others should strive for instead of outer beauty.
“I think a lot of times we say we want inner beauty but we seek to strive for outer beauty. What really helped me is understanding that it’s not actually about being the most beautiful person in the world; it’s about the beauty that radiates inside of you and off of you and how that can actually captivate the attention of somebody who loves you.”
“Think about that with faith too,” she challenged viewers. “There [are] a lot of beautiful things in the world. There [are] a lot of attractive things in the world, but I am captivated by God. I am captivated by faith. I am captivated by my family, by my husband. And therefore I don’t need to wander out in the world and do other things because I’m content with what I’m captivated by.”
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