Candace Cameron Bure Opens Up about Lifelong Struggles with Body Image
Actress and author Candace Cameron Bure is opening up about her lifelong struggles with body image, saying that they began at a young age with a battle against bulimia and continue even today.
Bure made the comments during two new episodes of The Candace Cameron Bure Podcast with guest host Lisa Whittle, herself an author and podcaster. The new season of Bure’s podcast features candid conversations with Whittle about body image.
At one point, Bure cried.
“I'm 49 years old, and I'm like, ‘Why do I think about this so much? Why does it even matter so much?’ It's so ridiculous, and yet I'm still thinking about it,” the Great American Family actress said in the season premiere. “We're here talking about it, and I'm glad we're talking about it.”
Bure said she developed an eating disorder at age 18 and “was binging and purging” regularly.
“I still say I'm bulimic, because the thoughts, whether I'm doing that or not, they never leave me. So I still need the tools to just say, ‘No, Candace, we're not doing that.’”
Her wrong body image, she said, began in the home.
“My mom was always on a diet. My sisters were always on a diet. I was always put on a diet. But it wasn't like, ‘Oh, you have to lose weight.’ It's just, ‘We're going to do this as preventative. We want to teach you how to be healthy and exercise.’ … My parents never wanted a [television] producer to come up to me and say, ‘We need your child to lose weight,’ so let's do everything preventative. And yet that very thing just shaped the way I looked at my body.”
Bure remembers comparing her body to that of fellow actress Andrea Barber, her Growing Pains co-star, who was “taller than me and skinny.” At the time, Bure longed to look more like Barber -- only to learn years later that Barber “hated how thin she was.”
Bure joked that the conversation with Whittle is therapy. The actress also acknowledged that she still has body goals.
“I'm going to be 50 next year. I started last October on a new project, working with specific people, because I have really big goals that are purely physical goals for my 50th birthday,” she said.
Meanwhile, Bure said her comments about her own body image in the season’s first podcast episode sparked pushback from some fans on her Instagram account. In episode two, she addressed the criticism directly, emphasizing that anyone, regardless of how they look, can struggle with body image.
“There were a lot [of comments] saying, ‘Candace, you're a thin person. You have an amazing body. How can you even be complaining? You don't know how it feels. You sound like a snobby, elitist, privileged actress when you have nothing to worry about when it comes to body.’ And that's the part where I'm like: You're wrong, because I have all the feelings, no matter what my exterior looks like to you, I have the same feelings whether I feel like I have five pounds to lose, no pounds to lose, or 100 pounds to lose. … Just because someone might be your goal doesn't mean that they're not working through hardships in their own life and have other goals.”
Whittle, acknowledging her own struggles with self-image, cited Scripture.
“1 Thessalonians 5:23 says, ‘May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of the Lord.’ That is about an inner work of sanctification. That's what it's about. And most of the time we're talking about, ‘What can I do to fix my outside?’ … But what about the inner work of sanctification, where that beauty on the inside is being made whole – because one day I'm going to get my glorified body. One day I'm going to be perfected. I sure don't want to waste any more time down here going, ‘Gosh, I hope everybody in the room thinks I'm pretty.’ Like, I want to be pretty. I want to look good, but I don't want to waste any more time. … [Jesus] did too much to come here for me to waste any more time. That's really what whole body theology does to change your life.”
Bure, wiping away tears, called Whittle’s words “convicting.”
“There's still struggle for me, but there's so much more freedom in my life, and so a lot of my tears -- [Whittle’s] words that are soothing my soul right now, because I know that freedom and it just humbles me. It humbles me that God wants us whole. He doesn't want us to waste this time. And I get sad for myself, too -- going, ‘How many years did I just waste caring about such particular things that just don't matter?’ They don't glorify God. They don't benefit anyone or anything. They don't add to my relationship with God or my purpose or my eternal life with Him.
“And I think that's the reminder, too, is that it's not all perfect here. It's never going to be,” Bure added. “Our hope is heaven.”
Photo Credit: ©Instagram/candacecbure
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
Listen to Michael's Podcast! He is the host of Crosswalk Talk, a podcast where he talks with Christian movie stars, musicians, directors, and more. Hear how famous Christian figures keep their faith a priority in Hollywood and discover the best Christian movies, books, television, and other entertainment. You can find Crosswalk Talk on LifeAudio.com, or subscribe on Apple or Spotify so you never miss an interview that will be sure to encourage your faith.
Originally published July 31, 2025.
