Under the Influencer (with Lee From America)

This week, Kate’s interviewing Lee Tilghman, also known as @LeeFromAmerica, who was one of the very first major wellness influencers on social media. To her nearly 400k followers, she shared daily updates on everything from skincare and sleep hacks to smoothie bowls, travel tips, and workout routines, and her sponsorships netted an income of over $300k a year. On the grid, her life seemed perfect. But behind her carefully curated posts, Tilghman was in crisis, suffocating from the unrelenting demand of keeping up her online facade. She found herself viewing everything she did as potential content for Instagram, her relationships suffered, and her job’s focus on food led her to develop an unhealthy obsession with eating “perfectly.” After a stay in a mental health facility to address her disordered eating and psychological decline, Tilghman quit influencing as her primary career and set out to discover who she really was by leaving it all behind. Or did she?

In this episode, Kate and Lee discuss her memoir (out Tuesday Aug 12) “If You Don’t Like This, I Will Die,” with topics including the pressures of influencer culture, the evolution of wellness trends, and the complexities of social media addiction. They explore Lee's journey through extreme wellness practices, her current POV on her treatment for orthorexia, and her departure from the influencer world. Ultimately, while Lee shares a compelling personal story, the conversation reveals notable inconsistencies between her current perspectives and her memoir's narrative, so Kate also contemplates how curated online personas continue to shape real-life accountability in her outtro and will continue the conversation over at patreon.com/bethereinfive.

Note: This episode covers eating disorders and wellness culture. For resources and support, visit NEDA.org

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