‘Riverdale’ Actress Lili Reinhart on Developing an Eating Disorder on Set

Lili Reinhart attends the "Hal & Harper" premiere during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Jan. 26, 2025. Cindy Ord/Getty Images

Actress Lili Reinhart, 28, believes she developed an eating disorder in 2022, a few months into filming the sixth season of “Riverdale.”

The CW-TV show is based on the “Archie” comic book series in which Reinhart brought the blonde Betty Cooper to life from 2017 to 2023.

“I really don’t like looking at season six imagery or pictures because I know that 99% of my thoughts were about my body,” Reinhart told Self magazine on Jan. 22.

Obsessive body thoughts, especially in a way that causes distress or impairs daily functioning, is a hallmark of body dysmorphia and disordered eating, according to Brooke Sprowl, a licensed therapist specializing in eating disorders and body image concerns who founded My LA Therapy.

“This preoccupation creates a negative feedback loop where self-worth becomes tied to physical appearance, fueling unhealthy behaviors and obsessive thoughts about weight, size, or perceived flaws,” Sprowl told The Epoch Times.

Reinhart has been very open about mental health. She had her first panic attack at 13 years old.

“I just remember being in my school bathroom, sitting in the stall,“ she said in Self. ”I think what my body naturally was trying to do was just catch its breath. I remember it feeling like a sudden sense of dread.”

Reinhart is also known for playing Annabelle in “Hustlers,” starring Jennifer Lopez, in 2019. On Instagram alone, she has 24.8 million followers.

“I was a thousand percent just disassociated through that entire day or scene because my entire inner dialogue is just ... ‘Your body’s changing,’” Reinhart recalled.

Sprowl defines disassociation as a state of feeling detached from reality, one’s self, and one’s emotions. Symptoms can range from zoning out during conversations to feeling completely disconnected from one’s body and surroundings.

“Disassociated individuals may not feel present in their bodies, which can disrupt their awareness of physical signals like feeling full after eating a meal,” Sprowl said. “This disconnection can lead to behaviors such as eating beyond fullness or mindlessly consuming food as a way to self-soothe or fill an emotional void.”

Women are more prone to eating disorders. The National Eating Disorders Association estimates that the overall lifetime prevalence of eating disorders is about 8.6 percent among females, compared to 4.07 percent among males.

“I didn’t think being in this industry that is so obsessed with women’s bodies and weights could ever mess with my own body acceptance and positivity,” Reinhart wrote on Instagram in 2022. “But it has.”

When Reinhart experienced unexplained gut issues and inexplicable weight gain, she was tested for Celiac disease and Crohn’s disease.

While Celiac disease involves experiencing a reaction to wheat, barley, rye, and other foods that contain gluten, Crohn’s disease is an auto-immune illness in which the digestive tract becomes inflamed.

“I’ve done all of them,” Reinhart said of diagnostic testing. “And my gut’s still like, ‘Hey, [expletive] you got something. You just can’t figure out what it is.’”

In addition to gut issues and weight gain, Reinhart also experienced fatigue and hair loss, which is why she thinks an auto-immune illness may be at play.

Out of the 8 percent of Americans living with an autoimmune disease, almost 80 percent are women, according to a study published in the American Journal of Pathology.

Reinhart, in a Jan. 24 Instagram post, wrote that “searching for answers about a mysterious autoimmunity/inflammatory disease made 2024 the hardest year” of her life.

The American Autoimmune Related Disease Association estimates that it takes an average of 4.6 years to get a diagnosis, while the National Library of Medicine lists lupus, Sjögren’s syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and psoriatic arthritis as the most common types of auto-immune diseases.

An auto-immune illness can be a part of an eating disorder as well as a factor that might lead to an eating disorder, according to Grace Lautman, a Washington state-based licensed therapist and certified nutritionist.

“Some individuals might have autoimmune symptoms that are super confusing and disruptive for instance, and then understandably try to solve those problems by eliminating food, only to end up eliminating more and more foods and having loads of stress around it all,” Lautman told The Epoch Times.

The Mayo Clinic lists anorexia, bulimia, and binge-eating as the most common eating disorders.

“Symptoms of auto-immune conditions can impact appetite, which can lead to the development of an eating disorder,” eating disorder specialist Lindsey Anuzis Gage told The Epoch Times.

“Our minds and bodies are so interconnected, so impacts on hormones, organ function, and inflammation from autoimmune conditions, and eating disorders can exacerbate symptoms of the other.”