Social media users are concerned that Jinger Duggar has grown ‘painfully thin’ — just a year after she opened up about ‘teetering dangerously on the edge of an eating disorder’ as a teenager.
Jinger, 28, and her husband Jeremy, 34, shared photos from their Easter celebrations this weekend — or as she calls it, Resurrection Sunday — and the images have inspired speculation that she’s lost weight.
With Jinger’s past issues with disordered eating, commenters are wondering whether she’s suffering and in need of some help.
Social media users are concerned that Jinger Duggar has grown ‘painfully thin’
Jinger, 28, and her husband Jeremy, 34, shared photos from their Easter celebrations this weekend, and the images have inspired speculation that she’s lost weight
One commenter who also suffered from eating disorders said that Jinger’s face ‘gives it away’
Photos from Sunday show Jinger in a white jumpsuit, which is cinched at the waist with a matching belt.
The jumpsuit is long, high-necked, and short-sleeved, and she paired it with nude sandals.
While fans on Instagram gushed over the outfit, telling her she looks ‘beautiful’ and ‘amazing,’ commenters on the DuggarsSnark subreddit noticed with alarm how slim she looks — with one speculating that she’s lost 20 lbs.
‘I worry about Jinger,’ one wrote. ‘She is getting painfully thin. Maybe she is just very small by nature: I don’t ever want to shame someone for having a small body frame. But I know she has a past with ED and seeing her so very tiny worries me. I’ve struggled with ED and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.’
‘I worry as well,’ wrote another.’ She already had a genetic predisposition and confirmed ED struggles as a teen. Regularly being in LA and being married to image-obsessed Jeremy are both vulnerability factors for a recurrence of her ED. She is looking troublingly thin.’
With Jinger’s past issues with disordered eating, commenters are wondering whether the ex-reality star (pictured in March) is suffering and in need of some help
A commenter speculated that Jinger is ‘using exercise as a way to “hide” or mask her eating disorder,’ and pleaded that the ex-reality star seek help if she is suffering
Another commenter who also suffered from eating disorders said that Jinger’s face ‘give it away.’
‘The way she looks now reminds me of when I was at my worst. No plumpness, void of color, the sunken eyes…all so sad. I recently saw a pic of her on here before she was married, and while she was thin, her face had life, color, and health to it.’
The commenter speculated that Jinger is ‘using exercise as a way to “hide” or mask her eating disorder,’ and pleaded that the ex-reality star seek help if she is suffering.
Jinger has spoken about struggling with eating issues when she was younger, speaking about body image and starvation in ‘The Hope We Hold: Finding Peace in the Promises of God,’ the book she co-authored with her husband.
Jinger recalled an ‘awkward phase’ she went through as a pre-teen, and how she believed the changes her body was going through were ‘unacceptable.’
In her book, Jinger (pictured left) recalled an ‘awkward phase’ she went through as a pre-teen, and how she believed the changes her body was going through were ‘unacceptable’
‘I hated the way I looked,’ she said. ‘I was convinced I was fat and getting fatter by the day. “I’m so ugly,” I scolded my reflection. “I need to do something about this. I need to be skinny.”‘
She decided to take drastic measures when she noticed that she’d gained half a pound. ‘Panicked’ that it would lead to more weight gain, she enacted a plan to stealthily lose weight without drawing the attention of the rest of her family.
Jinger thought the ‘key’ to losing weight was ‘eating fewer meals,’ but she felt that she had to do it without anyone noticing — so she would would sleep late in order to skip breakfast without arousing suspicion, eat a ‘super-light lunch,’ and then finish with a ‘healthy snack before dinner’ so she could say she wasn’t hungry and just pick at her food.
She said she went to bed starving.
‘It seemed reasonable at the time,’ she wrote. ‘I didn’t realize that my little weight- loss plan was teetering dangerously on the edge of an eating disorder.’
Jinger said she thought the ‘key’ to losing weight was ‘eating fewer meals,’ so she would skip breakfast, eat a ‘super-light lunch,’ and then finish with a ‘healthy snack before dinner’
Jinger (second from right) desperately compared herself to other girls, speculating that more people would like her if she were ‘skinny’
Keeping her motivated were daily looks in the mirror, where she saw ‘imagined rolls of fat and non-existent chubby cheeks.’
‘I had to be skinny,’ she wrote. ‘If this is what it took, then I would do it, I decided, no matter how hard it was.’
She desperately compared herself to other girls, speculating that more people would like her if she were ‘skinny.’
It certainly didn’t help her body image that her family was on television, and well-meaning fans would make rude and awkward comments about how she looked, including her size.
She said that her mother, Michelle, taught her to be ‘gracious,’ even when fans would say things like, ‘Wow, you’re a lot thinner than you look on TV!’
‘I heard that more than once,’ she recalled. ‘I’d watched the show myself, and the saying that the camera adds ten pounds is all too true.’
Jinger revealed in March that she is struggling with long COVID after getting sick in December 2020 – and she still didn’t have her sense of smell back over a year later
She said she lost her sense of smell and it hasn’t come back – and she ‘can only smell a tiny bit of something every once in a while and usually it stinks’
She said that her ‘extreme dieting’ plan lasted just a month before she turned to her mother for help. Michelle, who had battled with bulimia as a teenager, had told Jinger and the other girls all about her ‘poor body image and unhealthy relationship with food.’
When Jinger confessed, she said, her mom stressed the importance of eating enough calories to ‘fuel’ her body and helped get her on a healthier eating plan. She also warned her not to compare herself to others.
‘Her only requirement was that I eat about two thousand calories a day, enough for a healthy, growing girl,’ Jinger said.
If Jinger has lost weight, it could also be due to her battle with long-COVID, which she divulged in March.
Jinger revealed that she came down with COVID-19 in December of 2020, just weeks after giving birth to her second child — and over a year later, she still didn’t have her sense of smell back.
Jinger (pictured in December 2021) did not indicate whether she is suffering from any other long COVID symptoms
‘So last December, I lost my smell after having COVID,’ she began, later clarifying that she meant December 2020.
‘And it has stayed away,’ she said, looking none-to-pleased. ‘I can only smell a tiny bit of something every once in a while and usually it stinks.
‘I can smell a tiny bit of coffee, which is amazing. I think it’s a gift from God to be able to smell that.’
But, she added: ‘I’m telling you, if I smell any little bit of anything, it all smells nearly the same and stinks.’
Jinger did not indicate whether she is suffering from any other long COVID symptoms.
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