Christy Carlson Romano.Photo: Charley Gallay/Getty
Growing up in the spotlight as the star of Disney’s hit showEven Stevens,Christy Carlson Romanowas “very insecure” about her body, and that body image struggle later developed into an eating disorder.
The actress, 37, talkedabout her negative self-imageand eating disorder in a new video on her YouTube channel, shared Tuesday. Romano said that as a kid she was naturally “lanky, all arms and legs” and was bullied “because I was so skinny.”
Though it was just her shape, people on theset ofEven Stevensgrew concerned that Romano was too thin, she said.
At the time, Romano said, she didn’t have an eating disorder — “that kind of came later.”
A few years after that incident, Romano was “dropping down to a weight size that I think was super-duper skinny,” going to about 105 lbs. on her 5'7" frame.
“I rememberdrinking a lotand 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 said. “It’s just — I look at pictures from that time and I just know how unhappy and how unhappy the lifestyle was for me.”
TheKim Possiblestar continued to struggle with her eating habits and self-image, she said, and at one point dated a man who said it looked like she was “starving.” The first major change came when she mether now-husband, Brendan Rooney.
“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.”
Christy Carlson Romano and Shia LeBeouf on Even Stevens.George Lange/Disney Channel via Getty
But he helped her improve, Romano said, and then she “turned a corner” when she became pregnant with their first child,daughter Isabella, 4.
“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.”
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Romano said that seeing her pregnant body made her appreciate it for the first time.
“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 said. “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.”
Romano has since learned to appreciate her body, she said, and teaches her daughters — along with Isabella, she and Rooney are parents toSophia, 2— to do the same.
“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.’ "
source: people.com
