Lady Gaga Shares Bulimic Teen Years, Says ‘Dieting Wars’ Must Stop

lady gaga 041211Lady Gaga recently made a personal admission at  the “It’s Our Turn” conference hosted by Maria Shriver. The superstar shared at a Los Angeles high school that she used to suffer from bulimia as a teenager.

Gaga was reportedly asked by a teenage girl in the audience for advice on her own body image struggles. The young woman reportedly asked her how the pop star remains confident in her many head-turning ensembles and how she personally deals with such issues.

The LGBTQ advocate then responded that she herself was bulimic in high school and aspired to be a “skinny little ballerina.” She told the audience:

“I used to throw up all the time in high school. So I’m not that confident. And maybe it’s easier for me to talk about it now because I don’t do it anymore. I wanted to be a skinny little ballerina but I was a voluptuous little Italian girl whose dad had meatballs on the table every night. I used to come home and say, ‘Dad, why do you always give us this food? I need to be thin.’ And he’d say, ‘Eat your spaghetti.'”

The singer added that she eventually overcame her eating disorder for the sake of her voice, as the stomach acid on her vocal cords was making it difficult for her to sing. She also mentioned that her weight is still something she grapples with and imparted this tidbit to the kids when seeing her up on their screens:

“Weight is still a struggle. Every video I’m in, every magazine cover, they stretch you – they make you perfect. It’s not real life.”

The pop singer then made a more resounding statement with regard to “dieting wars,” urging girls to quit starving, binging, and purging because it’s impacting their health:

“I’m gonna say this about girls: The dieting wars have got to stop. Everyone just knock it off. Because at the end of the day, it’s affecting kids your age. And it’s making girls sick.”

Lady Gaga is of course already an outspoken advocate of LGBTQ children and bullying, making her perhaps a more family-friendly icon than her risque music videos would suggest. While an eating disorder often cannot simply be “knocked off” considering it’s an illness, Gaga’s sentiment should sound encouraging to those parents who often hear “Born This Way” blaring from their children’s iPods — or their own. The singer can now tout eating disorder awareness to her list of positive endeavors and perhaps we’ll be hearing more from her on this important issues for women and girls.

(photo: WENN)

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