Over the past few months, Paddy McGuinness’ model wife Christine has been criticised for regularly posting pictures of her amazingly toned body online.
Some have even suggested that her enviable snaps are actually “promoting anorexia”.
But an angry Christine has hit back at the claims and said the nasty comments have deeply hurt her – especially as she herself endured an eating disorder as a child.
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Speaking on Loose Women, the gorgeous model revealed that she had developed an eating disorder when she was just eight years old.
However, she admitted that her troubled relationship with food didn’t have anything to do with body image.
Well, not at that stage anyway. That came much later on, she admitted, when she embarked on a modelling career.
“I was eight or nine[when it started],” she told the panel. “I didn’t like eating in front of people… I was fussy… I was skipping meals – that’s how it started.”
“It wasn’t about body image. I accidentally fell into an eating disorder – I didn’t intentionally [starve myself].”
She explained that even at home she would avoid meal times and that she believes even to this day her mum still doesn’t realise how hard she was trying to avoid eating food.
Christine went to explain that it was only when she was encouraged to become a model that her dieting issues became more about body image
However, Christine was made aware of the harm she was doing to herself when doctors told her that her eating disorder would effect her having kids in the future.
“My mum took me to the doctor…. They said ‘You are affecting your fertility’,” she explained.
“That was my wake-up call – it took a couple of years to get better.”
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Christine also revealed that when, at 19, she first met funnyman Paddy, she kept her issues to herself for a while, before finally coming clean to him further down the line.
“I met him at 19. He had no idea I had these issues with food,” she said.
“He thought I was fussy… I always said I had already eaten [when we went out to dinner].”