Shawn Johnson opened up about her struggle with body image issues, drugs, and medications in a new video she shared on her YouTube channel.
Shawn Johnson got very real about her journey to embracing her body in her June 27 video uploaded to her YouTube channel. The 28-year-old gold medal-winning Olympian opened up in a video titled, Body Image Issues: 110 Lbs. to Pregnant about her struggle following the 2008 Olympics and how she took her “perfectionism mindset way too far.” Shawn described feeling like she had “run straight into a brick wall full speed,” and had struggled with “eating disorders, depression, [and] anxiety because as soon as the Olympics were over… I quickly realized I had a self-confidence and self-image issue.”
“Every decision I made in my life up until that moment, for at least 13 of my 16 years, was based on gymnastics. What it would take and what I needed to do to get to the Olympics. What I ate, who I hung out with, how I dressed,” she explained. “Literally every decision I made was for the Olympics. Now that the Olympics were over, I didn’t know how to function as a normal human being.”
Shawn Johnson competing at the 2008 Beijing Olympics [REX/Shutterstock]. The gymnast, however, tried to find her footing and appeared on the eighth season of Dancing with the Stars in 2009.
