Holliday, aged 38, is an American plus-sized model, blogger, and makeup artist, known for her advocacy for body positivity and embracing the term "fat."
The model has garnered a substantial following for embracing her body and promoting self-love, yet she's faced backlash from harsh critics.
Now, she's disclosed her own astonishment upon learning about her anorexia diagnosis.
When Holliday initially disclosed her anorexia diagnosis, she recounted how some doubted her honesty.
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by an obsessive preoccupation with food and body weight according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
It often leads to abnormal eating patterns as a way to manage stress, anxiety, and low self-esteem.
Eating disorders in larger bodies are often overlooked, with many not realizing that restrictive eating can affect individuals regardless of their size.
According to Beat, "Eating disorders are mental illnesses. They have a serious impact on someone's thinking and behaviour, but they are not guaranteed to cause noticeable changes to their appearance. Eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes and not everyone affected will 'look ill'. People may also gain, lose, or experience no obvious change to their weight as a result of an eating disorder."
A study in Frontiers in Psychology revealed that mental health professionals were more inclined to diagnose individuals classified as 'underweight' or 'normal weight' with anorexia compared to those classified as 'overweight'.
Additionally, those classified as 'overweight' were recommended fewer therapy sessions.
Holliday shared that her dietician was the first to bring up the possibility of her having an eating disorder.
She remembered: "When she said anorexia, I laughed. I thought, 'Do you see how fat I am? There's no way that word could ever be attached to someone my size'."
A psychologist later confirmed the dietician's diagnosis, leading Holliday to recognize that individuals of all body sizes and shapes can struggle with disordered eating.
Holliday candidly shared her diagnosis on X, formerly known as Twitter, stating: "I'm anorexic and in recovery. I'm the result of a culture that celebrates thinness and equates that to worth, but I get to write my own narrative now.
"I'm finally able to care for a body that I've punished my entire life and I am finally free."
In response to the candid post, a follower remarked: "Thank you for not compromising your language here to reinstate that the word anorexic is not a reference to weight but to the mind."
Another said: "I'm in recovery in a larger body size and not ashamed to say it as well. People need to get educated as it is not for just the skinny!"
While another X user chimed in: "I really wish my younger self had you to look up to. I remember always thinking I couldn't be anorexic because I was still fat. Thank you for speaking your truth you are amazing."
However, Holliday revealed that not all the responses she received were supportive.
In an essay for Today, she shared, "People said I was lying. There are people who believe I was saying this to get attention. I've had some people say, 'You're doing this to stay relevant'. I laugh because I know it's untrue, but it's so indicative of what a large problem this is."
A particularly harsh comment prompted Holliday to respond decisively.
"What mistakes r u owning? Maybe own the fact ur not anorexic and just wanted attention? No one wants u dead, we just want u to cut the bull," read one offensive comment directed at her.
In a subsequent video addressing this comment, Holliday retorted, "Just because you don't like that I exist in a larger body and I deal with a restrictive eating disorder, doesn't give you the right to just be a jerk."
She then directed viewers to a 2022 New York Times article titled "You Don't Look Anorexic," which tackles common misconceptions surrounding anorexia.
"I also can't blame you for not knowing because I myself did not know. The more folks that talk about it and the more folks that normalize it, then the less that we will have to deal with people like this, who think that they deserve to say whatever because they don't like what they are hearing or seeing," she goes on.
"I wish I was in a good place with my recovery and I felt like this is something I wanted to talk about more, but I currently don't," she adds before concluding: "I'm currently just managing things the best I can, and if you don't like what I'm saying or how I talk about my lived experiences, then there are a million other people that you can follow, bully, harass, whatever."
Holliday also said she felt 'as shocked as anyone' when she received her diagnosis.
In her Today essay, she writes: "I was as shocked as everyone when I learned I had anorexia."
Holliday shares: "For folks who claim they actually care about fat bodies and plus-size people and want to "help" us, the way you can help us is by supporting our mental health, and by understanding that there are so many people struggling with what I'm struggling with, but they don't know it, and they can't name it, and they can't get a diagnosis, because our system has never been set up to support folks in larger bodies."
