Alexa Bliss Credits Time In This Sport With Helping Her Deal With Eating Disorder

Not counting Bayley, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair and Mercedes Mone of the Four Horsewomen, a strong argument could be made that Alexa Bliss was the breakout star to come out of WWE's inaugural women's revolution. But just because Bliss has several Women's World and Tag Team Championship reigns to her name, including a current reign as Tag Champion with Flair, doesn't mean she hasn't had to go through hardship to get it. In the last few years alone, Bliss has seen her career put on hold for a variety of things, one of them good (giving birth to her daughter) and two of them less good, such as her 2023 skin cancer scare and a difficult contract re-negotiation with WWE that temporarily halted plans for her return.

But long before all of that, the biggest challenge Bliss faced, not in wrestling but in life, was an eating disorder. Bliss' struggles with anorexia began when she was a teenager, and once got so bad that she was told she was within 24 hours of dying, leading to a several day stay in the hospital where, according to Bliss, she wasn't allowed to sleep, as doctors feared she would go into cardiac arrest. Now years removed from the harrowing experience, Bliss has been more than open about her previous struggles, hoping to help other women avoid going down a similar path. And through her openness, the former Women's Champion has revealed one thing from her pre-WWE life that she believes helped her overcome her eating disorder; bodybuilding and fitness competitions.

Bliss was inspired to enter bodybuilding not by her first life threatening episode, but by a second in college, when Bliss' time as a cheerleader led to her falling back into bad habits. In an interview with BBC from 2018, Bliss revealed she returned home and, during a conversation with her best friend, realized she was not only sending a bad message to herself, but to her friend, who Bliss said was starting to pick up some of the tendencies she developed in trying to lose weight. At that point, Bliss committed to setting a better example, and started bodybuilding as a result. After seeing it lead to positive results regarding her body weight and health, Bliss decided to keep pursuing it, ultimately leading to her developing what she described as a "healthier lifestyle."

It also led to Bliss finding success within the sport, earning her IFBB card at the North American Championships in 2011. The moment was only the latest in strong showings for the then 20 year old Bliss, who revealed in an interview following the competition, where she also placed first in her class, that she had previously won in teen and collegiate competitions as well. It's unclear how many more competitions Bliss competed in after earning her card, though Muscle & Fitness reveals she participated in at least two; the 2012 Pittsburgh Pro, where she placed 6th in her class, and the 2013 Arnold Classic in Ohio, where she placed 13th. The latter competition may have been her last, as Bliss signed her WWE developmental contract only a couple of months later.