Whitney Port is opening up about how her social media followers helped her realize she needed to seek help for disordered eating. In a June 29 interview with E! News, the 39-year-old former Hills star and fashion designer candidly spoke out about her health struggles and the successes that followed.
In 2023, Port revealed her struggle with disordered eating during an episode of her podcast, With Whit. Speaking with the outlet, she dove deeper into her reflections since then. “I was just going through a lot of infertility stuff. I think I was so focused on the future and just stressed about what was happening within my body and what would happen, and so I just wasn’t focusing on feeding myself appropriately and getting the rest that my body needed.”
Port initially brushed off comments from fans until “it just hit me one day, honestly,” she revealed. “My husband said something to me about my weight and just being tired all the time. And then my Instagram followers were starting this whole conversation about how I looked at the same time. And I was like, ‘Whoa, I guess this is really something that’s real that I like need to look at.'”
The Steps Whitney Port Took to Help Herself…
“I made some real actionable steps,” she told E!, explaining that she started by taking a “little breather” from her fertility journey. “I also started working with a nutritionist who wrote a book all about intuitive eating. And that has been so helpful to me, just eating what makes me feel good, or what I’m craving.”
Port used to put off eating as a result of being overwhelmed with “decision fatigue” over what to eat and when. “So many moms are making so many decisions on a daily basis when it comes to feeding themselves, I don’t want to make a decision, or I don’t know what I feel like or I’ll just eat later at dinner with everybody,” she explained. “And we just push it aside. And that decision fatigue and the stress that comes with that, what I’ve learned is that it’s worse for you than the thing that you’re actually craving is.”
What Intuitive Eating Looks Like for Her…
At a nutritionist appointment, Port talked about craving hot dogs, to which her provider didn’t see a problem. “But I’m like, ‘Hot dogs are filled with who knows what,'” Port said. “And she’s like, ‘Eat a hot dog for breakfast, lunch and dinner if that’s what you feel like. The feeling of filling yourself up and putting something in your body is so much better for you than thinking, ‘Is this good? Is this bad?'”
She added of her nutritionist’s feedback: “She’s like, ‘More often than not, if you eat three hotdogs today, you’re probably going to wake up tomorrow and not want hot dogs. You’ll probably want avocado toast or something. So it’s all about really leaning into that and taking the pressure off of those decisions and not looking at food as good and bad.”
She’s used this insight to guide her seven-year-old son, too. “That’s really been helpful with Sonny, too, giving him what he wants when he wants it,” said Port. “And then he’s very in tune with how certain things make him feel. So last night, I was like, ‘What do you want for dinner? And he’s like, ‘A salad with chicken.'”
Overall, the journey to getting healthier hasn’t been as demanding as Port expected. “I thought it was going to be this intense diet of counting calories and am I getting enough protein. And it wasn’t like that. And that has been so, so helpful for me.”
