Zayn Malik has been candid about his struggle with anxiety. Now, he’s opening up about a new health issue he’s faced. In an excerpt from his upcoming book, Zayn, Malik says he developed an eating disorder while he was in One Direction—and he didn’t realize it was a problem until he left the band.
“Something I’ve never talked about in public before, but which I have come to terms with since leaving the band, is that I was suffering from an eating disorder,” Malik wrote in an excerpt obtained by The Sun. “It wasn’t as though I had any concerns about my weight or anything like that, I’d just go for days—sometimes two or three days straight—without eating anything at all. It got quite serious, although at the time I didn’t recognize it for what it was.”
Malik says his eating disorder was a way for him to deal with his hectic world. “I didn’t feel like I had control over anything else in my life, but food was something I could control, so I did,” he said. “I had lost so much weight I had become ill. The workload and the pace of life on the road put together with the pressures and strains of everything going on within the band had badly affected my eating habits.”
Jennifer J. Thomas, Ph.D., co-director of the Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, tells SELF that it’s not uncommon for food restriction to stem from things besides weight-related issues. “About 20 percent of the time, anorexia will present without shape and weight concerns,” she says, noting that this is called “non-fat phobic anorexia nervosa.”
Indeed, control can be a big factor in anorexia, licensed clinical psychologist Alicia H. Clark, Psy.D., tells SELF. “It really is about food and hunger being controlled when nothing [else] feels in control,” she says. Ashley Sheil, L.M.F.T., site director at The Renfrew Center of Charlotte, agrees. “Eating disorder behaviors are frequently used to help individuals cope with stressors, and these stressors often include many factors that are outside of their control,” she tells SELF. “When life becomes stressful and we cannot change our circumstances, controlling our food intake provides a temporary feeling of order and relief.”
Thomas says Malik’s unawareness that he had a problem isn’t unusual either, especially since his eating disorder didn’t stem from body image issues. But even if someone says they aren’t dealing with disordered eating, or they just don’t realize it, experts can typically infer that there’s a problem based on the patient’s behavior.
Per Sheil, some of the common warning signs of an eating disorder include obsession around food, distorted or negative self-image, withdrawal from normal social activities, unusual food rituals, and changes in mood. “It is important to note that a person may have symptoms of more than one diagnosis or may not fully meet the diagnostic criteria for one specific disease but may still need help,” she says.
