Elisa Donovan | Advocate Now 

Known for her roles in Clueless and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the actor's career flourished in during the '90s. As a time with particularly brutal beauty standards, Donovan shares that she struggled with anorexia for many years.

"In the nineties, it was it was a very brutal time to be in front of the camera because that was when the norm was to be emaciated and no one wanted to talk about eating disorders," she tells Sonia Baghdady of Advocate Now. "It was very commonplace for a studio or a network to tell you you have to lose weight."

Donovan adds that "to get healthy in that framework was very difficult," but while the culture complicated her journey, it also made her more determined to heal.

"I felt like I was the only person who was starting to try to help themselves," she explains. "But in another way, that's probably why it's really stuck for me — because I thought, if I can do it in this environment, it's going to stick."

The author believes that the modern body positivity movement has been "wonderful" for acceptance, but has moved "very slow," and that there's still a larger cultural shift that needs to take place before meaningful change can occur.

"[We'll] put someone on the cover of a magazine who has a bigger body size, and then we'll all applaud them for being so brave ... that they don't look the way they're supposed to look. There's very insidious messaging that goes on," she says. "I do feel encouraged that there is such a celebration of bodies of all shapes and sizes. But I do think culturally and within the real framework of our journalists and our media, that we have a little bit of work to do still."

Throughout her recovery, Donovan has come to appreciate herself in ways beyond the physical.

"When I really think about what I love about myself — or what I feel proud of and good about — it's my empathy, my compassion, my creativity, my resolve, my kindness, my unique point of view. Which, for the record, we all have one," she says. "And that's one of those things that the eating disorder really robs you of, which is your own personal voice."

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