Alia Bhatt opened up about battling body image issues and going to therapy in a conversation with Barkha Dutt at the ‘We The Women’ Global Townhall. When asked if she has a message for 18-year-old Alia, the actor said, “There’s a part of me that feels like whatever I’ve been through has resulted in who I am now.”
She added, “But there is one part of me I still struggle with a little bit…because I’m facing the camera, I’ve been very hard on myself through the years with regards to my food, the dieting, the weight, and the way I’m looking."
"That’s a struggle that’s been constant. While I have to be professional and correct and I need to tick certain boxes because I’m doing this as a job. I feel like beyond a point, I was almost being too hard on myself. That’s something I’d change.”Alia Bhatt
“With the Instagram culture and editing images, I sometimes feel that I want to tell young girls out there to just be kind to themselves and to their body. It honestly doesn’t matter in the long term. I am saying this to myself as well,” Alia further said.
Alia added that she has developed a better relationship with her body image along the way, “Now I’m like, I’ll put in the effort, I’ll go to gym, I’ll work hard and that’s it. But I’m going to have my moong dal halwa and French fries because they make me happy. Over the years, it’s been a bit of a struggle.”
Alia Bhatt also opened up about talking about her body image issues in therapy, “I’d tell myself as an 18-year -old or 20-year-old, that ‘Listen, just relax. Put the effort in but don’t be so hard on yourself’ because it does catch up. I do therapy once a week and in four sessions in three months, I’m talking about body image issues.”
Expanding upon why she started therapy and her experience, Alia Bhatt said, “When I started therapy, it was just like a hygiene thing. Like I take care of my body, I go to gym, I need to take care of my mind as well."
Alia further said, "It’s something I started when we were in the lockdown. Everyone was going through a hard time and I thought that’d be the right time to start it. But through those sessions I realised I have all these issues when it comes to (body image).”
Alia Bhatt was last seen in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Gangubai Kathiawadi and is all set to make her Hollywood debut with Heart Of Stone with Gal Gadot.
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