Episode 23: Anxiety, Anorexia and Fashion with Eve Simmons

Eve is the deputy health editor at The Mail on Sunday - a writer and a journalist. 

Eve has happy childhood memories around food.

At school she felt different, shy and “uncomfortable in her own skin.”

Four days before Eve’s thirteenth birthday her father died. Two years later she experienced her first serious bout of anxiety.

Eve’s anxiety remained constant, at University, and beyond as she started her new career within the media/fashion industry.

Work was exciting and stressful. Prior to her new job Eve dismissed fashion’s ideas around health and ‘thinness’ as ridiculous.

But now she was in it, she felt conflicted. She skipped breakfast and then lunch – the weight fell off – which made her one of the gang, a cool girl, until, finally, reducing dinner to the smallest size seemed completely normal. It wasn’t long before Eve was barely able to eat at all.

Within a few short months Eve developed anorexia nervosa. As her recovery began she received treatment as a day patient but when that didn’t work she was admitted full time onto a psychiatric ward. An experience Eve likens to the Ken Kesey novel and 1975 film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. 

EPISODE TIMESTAMPS:

[02:30] - Descent into Anorexia

[14:00] - Influences at work

[27:20] - Realisation

[30:30] - Treatment 

CONNECT WITH EVE SIMMONS:

Instagram: @eviesimm & @notplantbased

Website: www.dailymail.co.uk

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