Christy Carlson Romano opens up about the eating disorder she developed after ‘Even Stevens.

Christy Carlson Romano, a YouTube sensation, reveals that she was once afflicted by an eating disorder. The Evens Stevens alum shares how growing up in the spotlight led to an unhealthy relationship with her body image –– which later developed into a full-blown eating disorder. 

She described her natural ability to describe being naturally “lanky”She was thin for most of her adult life. But, once she became famous on the Disney Channel, she began to have conversations about how beautiful she is. “too skinny”It began to emerge. The rumours started to circulate that this was not a simple issue of high metabolism. 

“I’m sure they had the best intentions, but the rumor of me having an eating disorder came back to me … and I was very hurt by it, because I took it as though I was too thin and there was nothing I could do about that. That was just the way I was, I wasn’t actively trying to have an eating disorder,”She said that the disorder was a serious problem and added this in the video. “kind of came later.”

“I remember drinking a lot and I remember smoking lots of cigarettes and I remember just not eating and waking up at like, later parts of the day and not prioritizing my health in general,”She shared her story. “It’s just — I look at pictures from that time and I just know how unhappy and how unhappy the lifestyle was for me.”Carlson Romano has admitted at one point that her weight dropped dramatically to 105 lbs. 

Brendan Rooney, her husband, is the one who made her first significant changes. “So sad to say that it took meeting a guy [Rooney] for me to start to feel better,”She said. “Like I do not wish that for you. I do not wish for you to not realize your own potential until meeting someone. Like there’s nothing stopping you from knowing your power.”Carlson Romano says Rooney was a major influence on her life. Though, a second change would soon come that would push her to appreciate her size –– the pregnancy of her first daughter, Isabella. 

“I went from like, some of my thinnest — I was probably like 110 [lbs.] — to 165. I gained like 50-60 lbs., and even my doctor told me, hey, maybe you want to slow down on gaining weight, and I was like, ‘No! Absolutely not! I have an appetite for the first time in my life,’ “She said. “For a long time I lived without an appetite, and that really stinks, because that’s kind of a metaphor. You don’t have an appetite for life, you don’t have an appetite to like, get up and do things.”

“Once I had that weight on my body, which I hadn’t had, ever, I was really loving my body. Like I was really loving the way that I felt and looked, and I felt like a woman,”She continued. “I had curves for the first time and I felt good. I felt like I didn’t have to make any excuses for being too thin or anything like that. I felt really good.”

She now looks at her life and has a more positive outlook. The actress hopes that she and her husband will instill healthy body image thinking in their daughters. Rooney and Isabella have a 2-year-old girl named Sophia. “I love to talk to them about their bodies now,”She said. “And what’s so amazing about inclusion and everything that’s happening right now is that the bodies that we’re seeing in this concept of all bodies are great bodies. I am into that, because my daughters need to know that their bodies are important, and I express to them, ‘Your body is perfect, and you are great, and this body — you get one body, so treat it really, really well.’ “