Kusha Kapila on why she lost weight, body image issues: ‘Was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was happy I lost weight’

Kusha Kapila opens up about her drastic weight loss journey, marked by childhood bullying, unhealthy dieting, and illness.

Influencer and actor Kusha Kapila recently became the talk of the town when she drastically dropped several kilos. Her weight loss journey was attributed to ozempic by some internet trolls, while a few others praised her for the transformations.

Now, in a video posted on May 30 on her YouTube channel, Kusha is opening up about why she lost weight. In it, she talks about her weight loss journey, childhood trauma around her weight, starving to gain validation, unhealthy weight loss practices she adopted when she was young, struggles with body image issues, and her tuberculosis diagnosis.

Kusha Kapila's drastic weight loss journey

Kusha said that though everyone wants to know how I lost weight, she wants people to know why she did it, because that is more important. She shared that the constant discussion around her transformation felt like an out-of-body experience as people labelled her an ‘average girl’ turned into a ‘goddess of beauty’. “Someone else was talking about my body more than I was…I started feeling like I wasn’t even in my body,” Kusha said. This led to her struggles with external validation and internal struggle.

Childhood struggle with weight gain

However, this wasn't Kusha's first time losing weight. She started gaining weight when she was 10, and lost weight for the first time when she was just 12 or 13 years old, after people nicknamed her ‘motu’, a teacher fat-shamed her, and made her realise she was ‘fat’.

When she was in 10th grade, she again gained weight, and her mother enrolled her in a gym, which was equivalent to an “akhada." There she began strength training, doing floor exercises, and running on a treadmill, losing 20-22 kgs. However, it ended up creating deep body image issues that would stay with her for a long time.

Unhealthy weight loss journey and tuberculosis diagnosis

When she entered college, she started gaining weight again. At 22, she had gained 10 more kgs and was in an unhealthy state. It was when a friend saw how she was in a bad mental space and told her to ‘work on herself’ that Kusha joined the gym again. She followed an extreme calorie-deficient diet and lost weight quickly and dramatically.

Eventually, she fell sick. She had a fever that didn't go away for 12 days, and after multiple tests, she was diagnosed with abdominal tuberculosis. “Women over 25-26 are more prone to TB. I was diagnosed because I had dropped my immunity so drastically…I was losing weight, which I liked. This is how body image issues play with your mind. You are sick, you are losing weight, and you are happy that you are nearing your goal weight,” she confessed.

Then, when her career took off, she ignored her body completely, which led to weight fluctuations. Finally, the influencer recently decided to lose weight again, but in the correct way. “For the first time in my life, I felt like I wanted to lose weight for myself. I told myself: ‘You are by yourself now. You’re responsible for everything that happens in your life. Take care of yourself, because no one else is coming’."