Lili Reinhart details her struggle with ‘brutal’ body dysmorphia as she admits she spent months complaining about her ‘average’ arms

Lili Reinhart has revealed that her body dysmorphia has gone ‘crazy’ in recent months.

The American actress, 27, who is best known for her role as Betty Cooper in Riverdale, took to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday to reveal her plight.

Lili admitted that she felt like her arms “should be half their size” and confessed that she had wasted an “insane” amount of time obsessing over them.

The star considered whether the problem was a “cruel amplified version” of both severe body dysmorphia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Last January, Lili revealed she was “struggling with severe obsessive thoughts about her weight” as she decried Hollywood’s “obsession” with women’s bodies.

On Thursday, Lili tweeted: “I wish there were more average sized guns for women represented in mainstream media. My body dysmorphia has gone crazy because I feel like my arms should be half the size they currently are?

“We’ve glorified these skinny arms that for most of us, you can only achieve when you’re literally an adolescent.

‘I really wonder how anyone survives or gets through this life without having severe BD. Maybe it’s a cruel amplified version combined with my OCD, but damn.

‘The amount of time I’ve wasted over the past few months thinking about my arms is crazy. I wanted to put my own thoughts out there to let other women know they are not alone.”

Last January, Lili shared how she was “struggling with severe obsessive thoughts about her weight,” writing her confession on social media.

She confessed, “It’s a devastating feeling not to feel at home in my own skin. As if my body has betrayed me by changing.

‘I’ve looked in the mirror and pulled my skin back to see what I *should* look like. What I expect to look like… in an industry where it’s difficult if you don’t have a sample size.”

But while Lili faces special challenges because much of her career is based on her appearance, she noted that so many people face the same issues.

‘It’s painful to think that hundreds of millions of us are so concerned about the way our bodies look. That is an incredibly broken system. Somewhere, humanity has really screwed this up.”

Lili has often opened up about the mental health issues she has struggled with since childhood.

In 2018, she revealed that she suffers from anxiety and depression, detailing how she endured debilitating panic attacks and how therapy ultimately gave her a new lease on life.

The actress, originally from Cleveland, Ohio, told V Magazine that her depression became “extreme” after she moved to Los Angeles at the age of 18.

After struggling with a “terrible roommate situation,” she settled in the Hollywood Hills and lived in a house she shared with seven people.

‘I didn’t know anyone there. I had no friends there,” she said. ‘I had no family there. So when I moved there, it was just me.

“And I didn’t go to school, so I didn’t have any way to really meet people or be social. I was just waiting for my auditions.

“I literally spent most of my days doing nothing, sitting in my room watching Netflix and waiting for an audition to come up. And it was miserable.

‘My health got so bad because I was depressed. I was throwing up every day, having panic attacks, night sweats, and I was just sad.

‘There came a time when I called my mother and thought, “I have to come home. I’m not doing well. I’m not doing well right now. My mental health is not good.”

‘My mental health has always been such a priority for me that I knew when it was affecting my physical health.’

Lili previously spoke about her body dysmorphia in a 2018 interview, telling Seventeen that her struggle began when she developed “really bad acne” in seventh grade.

She said: ‘I developed mild body dysmorphia; when I broke out, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror for a few months.

‘I remember doing my make-up for school in the dark, which is a terrible idea, but that’s because I didn’t want to see myself in that bright light.

“Sometimes when I have a breakout, it reminds me of when I was a teenager and I feel so self-conscious — like the whole world is looking at my bad skin,” she said, noting that there have been times when she did not go outside because of the appearance of her acne.

In 2019, Lili denounced body-changing apps in a lengthy statement, pleading with people not to make themselves look thinner on social media.

She insisted: ‘This is why people develop eating disorders. This is why social media has become dangerous to our health. This is why people have unrealistic expectations of their bodies.

‘I beg you: don’t use these types of apps. If you photoshop your body, you compound the problem.”

The tirade against the editing app continued with Lili explaining why she thought it was harmful for people to use the editors or support people who use them.

“This is how unrealistic standards for human bodies have been created – to the point where people later surgically use their bodies to achieve unattainable results,” she wrote, arguing that everyone was “better” than using an app or undergoing of plastic surgery.

Looking “skinny” in a photo on Instagram is not worth the damaging psychological effects these Photoshop apps have given our generation.