Lee Tilghman (born February 16, 1990), known online as Lee From America, is an American internet personality. A former wellness blogger and influencer, she had over 370,000

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

followers before taking a hiatus from the platform in 2019. , she writes a

Substack Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters. It allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers. Founded in 2017, Substack ...

newsletter, ''Offline Time'', about digital culture.

Life and career

Tilghman grew up in

Fairfield, Connecticut Fairfield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It borders the city of Bridgeport and towns of Trumbull, Easton, Weston, and Westport along the Gold Coast of Connecticut. Located within the New York metropolitan area ...

, outside of New York City. She studied

creative writing Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...

Saint Joseph's University Saint Joseph's University (SJU or St. Joe's) is a private Jesuit university in Philadelphia and Lower Merion, Pennsylvania. The university was founded by the Society of Jesus in 1851 as Saint Joseph's College. Saint Joseph's is the seventh olde ...

in Philadelphia, graduating in 2012. She has maintained a public presence on the internet since college, starting with a

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

, ''For the Love of Peanut Butter'', about her recovery from

anorexia Anorexia nervosa, often referred to simply as anorexia, is an eating disorder characterized by low weight, food restriction, body image disturbance, fear of gaining weight, and an overpowering desire to be thin. ''Anorexia'' is a term of Gre ...

as a teenager. She spent some time working on farms, and after college she moved to New York City and worked in finance. In 2014, Tilghman started ''Lee From America'' as a food blog and Instagram account while working in marketing in the restaurant industry. The account took off in 2017 after she moved to Los Angeles, accruing over 300,000 followers by the next year. Described as a "wellness

guru Guru ( sa, गुरु, IAST: ''guru;'' Pali'': garu'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan-Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: traditionally, the guru is a reverentia ...

", she became known for posting about recipes (especially smoothie bowls), exercise (including

yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...

), and mental health and shared sponsored content for a variety of brands, from apparel to air travel, that earned her over $300,000 a year. Some of her posts suggested ways to manage

PCOS Polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, is the most common endocrine disorder in women of reproductive age. The syndrome is named after the characteristic cysts which may form on the ovaries, though it is important to note that this is a sign and no ...

(a condition Tilghman has), such as fertility trackers and alternative-medicine seed cycling. She held a series of Matcha Mornings Workshops in 2018 in various US cities; the events—with $500 ticket prices—were criticized by some fans as out of touch and appropriative. In February 2019, Tilghman began an extended break from Instagram. She had planned a short

digital detox A digital detox is a period of time when a person voluntarily refrains from using digital devices such as smartphones, computers, and social media platforms. This form of detoxification has gained popularity, as individuals have increased their t ...

when flooding forced her out of her apartment, and that disruption to her routine led her to pause her online career and recognize the severity of her eating disorder, which she identified as

orthorexia Orthorexia nervosa (also known as orthorexia) (ON) is a proposed eating disorder characterized by an excessive preoccupation with eating healthy food. The term was introduced in 1997 by American physician Steven Bratman, M.D. He suggested that som ...

. In July 2019, she returned to Instagram as a critic of wellness culture, wearing more modest attire and a

bowl cut A bowl cut or mushroom cut is a simple haircut where the front hair is cut with a straight fringe (see bangs) and the rest of the hair is left longer, the same length all the way around, or else the sides and back are cut to the same short length ...

and promising to " seher platform in a different way". She deleted some of her old posts and began trying to find a new online identity. She posted a video in November 2019 apologizing for her past promotion of " diet culture" via medically dubious advice that stemmed from a focus on

body image Body image is a person's thoughts, feelings and perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body. The concept of body image is used in a number of disciplines, including neuroscience, psychology, medicine, psychiatry, ps ...

. Since rebranding, her follower count fell by more than 100,000, and she gradually stopped sponsored posting. Tilghman moved back to New York City in late 2020 and worked as a social media manager for a technology company into late 2021. Early the next year, she started a newsletter on Substack, ''Offline Time'' (formerly ''Pet Hair on Everything''), where she writes about internet culture. In March 2023, she held an online fifteen-person workshop on "deinfluencing".

References

External links

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Offline Time
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newsletter)
Former blogarchived version
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tilghman, Lee 1990 births Living people People from Fairfield, Connecticut Writers from Fairfield, Connecticut Social media influencers American bloggers American women bloggers