Jinger Duggar Didn’t Eat Enough Growing Up Because of Fears She Was ‘Too Fat’

Jinger Duggar has learned to have a “healthy relationship with food” after childhood struggles.

“I think, for me in particular, [my people-pleasing tendencies were] definitely something I was so insecure [about] for so many years, which led me to some bad places,” Duggar, 31, said during the Wednesday, January 15, episode of the “Unplanned” podcast. “Even with the way I was viewing eating and things like that. I struggled with, like, not eating enough and it was because I thought I was too fat — and I wasn’t.”

She added, “It was a thought process of wanting to belong and wanting to have those friendships that were genuine. At some point, we realized, ‘OK, well, we were designed for community. That’s a good thing, [and] we weren’t designed to live on an island by ourselves. We’re supposed to be in community with other people.’”

For Duggar, she was fearful of rejection and not being accepted by her peers. The Counting On alum also compared herself to others by the time she reached her teenage years.

“I was in the ages of, like, 13, 14, 15 [and] I had friends who naturally were super skinny and I would look at these girls and would compare myself to them,” Duggar recalled. “I was actually pretty skinny at that point. I wouldn’t gain weight easily, but I thought I might. It was that fear of just, like, ‘I wasn’t as skinny as them, but I was still healthy.’ It was that comparison that started to happen in my mind. I didn’t think properly about myself.”

Duggar continually thought she wasn’t “pretty enough” or “skinny enough” compared to her peers and slowly started trying to “avoid meals and things like that.”

“I felt miserable because I was thinking, ‘OK, I don’t want to eat’ or I would think, ‘If I went to somebody else’s house, then I’d be [thinking about] what we were going to eat [and] am I going to have something that’s going to not make me fat?’” she said. “My entire day would be consumed with that thought.”

Jinger ultimately spoke with her mother, Michelle Duggar, since she struggled with bulimia as a teenager herself. (Jinger, who is one of Michelle and husband Jim Bob Duggar’s 19 children, did not battle bulimia.)

“I was able to go talk to her after many months of wrestling with this,” Jinger said. “When I talked to her, she was really sweet [about] the way she handled it. It was so helpful because she did not go from one extreme to the other, where she was just telling me, ‘OK, now you need to eat everything in sight.’ She didn’t force me to eat things that were unhealthy.”

Jinger continued, “She’s like, ‘Jinger, I really appreciate you telling me that,’ but she came up with a plan [to] ‘text me what you eat every day and I’d love to be accountable too, and I’ll text you what I eat.’”

Jinger found her mom’s support to be “so sweet” when she “was struggling so much.”

“I was so embarrassed by how I was struggling,” the reality TV personality admitted. “I didn’t want to open up to her, but I knew I could ‘cause she’s the sweetest person in the whole world.”

According to Jinger, Michelle, now 58, was also adamant that she ate enough protein and fiber.

“It was the most helpful thing for me because then I started to develop a healthy relationship with food,” Jinger explained. “It was something that I realized, ‘OK, yeah, when you struggle like that, she was telling me, it doesn’t mean [she would] force you to eat three cheeseburgers because you don’t need that. [It’s] just, ‘eat what you need to eat and that’s enough.’ It was helpful for me to process and she kept telling me, ‘You’re beautiful just the way God made you.’”

Once Jinger was able to adapt her diet, she made sure to eat “the right amount” of food for her body that reinvigorated her.

“I started to feel better [and had] more energy,” Jinger gushed. “Just enjoying life again because I wasn’t thinking about food and then when I got to somebody’s house and they had something I typically wouldn’t eat or it was super greasy or unhealthy, I’d be like, ‘I’m OK, I’m going to eat this and it doesn’t matter.’”

If you or someone you know struggles with an eating disorder, visit the National Alliance for Eating Disorders website or call their hotline at +1 (866) 662-1235. Text “ALLIANCE” to 741741 for free, 24/7 support.