Blog
Yara Jaber

This Lebanese Woman Is Battling Anorexia One Stigma At A Time

It started when Lynn Laz was 20 years old and reached the weight of 60 kg. She immediately wanted to return back to the weight range of 50s, and per prevalent behavior in individuals who don’t have enough information about the process, she stepped into the world of counting calories and sizing up her portions.

In an interview with Beirut.com, Lynn talks about her journey. As she began to realize her urge to lose weight, she sought help in a certain diet center – she prefers not to name – and during one of her meetings with them, a nutritionist told her, “ba3ed ahla iza btenzale 2,3 kilos” while being on a meal plan of 1000 calories.


Lynn amid her struggle with the eating disorder

“The obsession started when I all I cared about was not gaining weight, I wanted to maintain it. I didn’t care if I lost more kilos than I should, I only cared about not seeing that number on the scale rise.”

Her social media obsession started as she was following all kinds of diet and training accounts. “I used to sneak to the gym when my trainer wasn’t there and do 60 minutes of cardio, as opposed to his recommendation of only 10 minutes. I was obsessing about any form of weight loss,” Lynn says. In 5 months, she managed to drop her weight to 45 kg and since then everything turned downhill. She started fanatically calculating her calories, and wouldn’t eat more than 500-600 calories a day.

As people around her started to notice her eating habits, she put on a show by pretending to eat a plate and then proceed to throw it in the trash: “Once my father handed me ma3moul to eat, and as soon as he turned his back I threw it out the window. 10 minutes later, I walked downstairs to hide it, so he wouldn’t see it and find out. The obsession takes you to a place where you really can’t control anything you do anymore.”

“Even when I used to eat apples, I used to take them all out of the fridge and size them up to chose the smallest one.”

The thing about a person with anorexia is that they tend to be very smart at hiding things. Lynn explained to us that she would say things in conversations like, “People should not consume less than 1200 calories per day, because your body enters a mode of starvation” while she herself was eating less than 600 calories a day.

With signs of Anorexia looming, other related health and personal problems surfaced. Lynn stopped going out with her friends and preferred to eat lunch boxes from diet centers, that had the calories stamped on them, alone in her car. To her it felt good, it felt like an achievement that she was able to skip a meal. People around Lynn made comments that ranged from “waw ktir helo da3fane” to “serte anorexic.

After noticing that her menstruation cycle stopped happening for several months, Lynn visited the gynecologist. He didn’t explicitly mention that this could be the cause of a certain eating disorder, but he looked her straight in the eye at one point and said, “Eat so it would come back”. “I don’t what it was or why, but it hit me that moment. I knew I had a problem.”

After talking to her supportive family, she acknowledged the issue and started her path on the road of recovery. After getting the proper psychological and nutritional treatment for a year and a half, Lynn managed to get back on track and is getting by until today.


Lynn now on the road to recovery

“Even now, I’m 51 kg, which is not the ideal weight for my height and body, but mentally I’m free. I still have small relapses, but I manage to control them. I am aware of my situation and I now know how to fight those urges. I learned to control the voice in my head and not let it overpower me.”



“I eat normally now and my health is fine, but the only thing I’m still not being able to get back is the pleasure food gives you, and trust me, it’s not something worth losing.”

When asked about what was the main drive behind making her story public, she replied with, “I’m doing this because of the Lebanese society and how it deals with eating disorders. While I was going through it, many people abandoned me because they couldn’t believe it. “Hiyye betheb ted3af” was the reason people came up with. To them anorexia wasn’t a valid or real thing.”


We are hugely inspired by Lynn’s story and bravery, especially in the context of Lebanon, where eating disorders are culturally and socially stigmatized and not properly dealt with. With all the pressure placed on the female body, many young women are forced into a certain category and thus feel obligated to cater to what looks “good and sexy”. Even simple sentences, not meant to implicate harm, like “badik ba3ed shway w biseer jesmik ktir helo” could have more serious ramifications on a person than one would think.

Lynn’s main goal now is to increase awareness in the MENA region. She promotes intuitive eating and hopes to start an NGO one day, as she knows the cost of the treatment is very high, and some people can’t afford it, or won’t pay for it due to the skepticism revolving around the disorder itself.

She is the founder of her personal blog, Point à la Lynn, where she documents her journey. Check out her Facebook and Instagram accounts where you can read all about her story.