Hannah Brown has opened up about her struggle with body image over the years in a candid new YouTube video.
The “Bachelorette” star discussed going on “extreme diets” to lose the pounds for pageants, which resulted in her weight constant yo-yoing.
Brown said that her struggles started at a young age when she would look through catalogues and compare herself to the models on the pages.
“I had a really round face, like I still do now, and huge dimples,” she told the camera. “Everyone would always comment on my ‘little chubby face.'”
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Brown added that she “always hated” her legs and that she’d never had a thigh gap like other girls.
The star, who insisted she “loved to eat,” said that things got worse in high school.
She said that people would tell her she was “pretty, but I was a little curvy or thick”: “If they only knew how much that hurt me because I struggled with it so much.”
Brown explained how a close friend had told her when she was doing pageants that if she were to go on a diet where she only eats and drinks liquids, she would lose 15 pounds easily.
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The reality TV star said of a different diet, “I remember I was hungry. I was so, so hungry.
“As soon as I stopped [dieting], after the pageant, I was literally starving, all the weight came back on and more. That was really hard for me, so that started the constant yo-yo that I’ve had for so long.”
She said that she’d lost weight after going through a breakup: “I was so scared of gaining the weight. I definitely think I struggled with an eating disorder. I had disordered eating, that is for sure. I would work out in the mornings with a trainer and I was so small and had no energy that I couldn’t even really do the workouts that I used to do.”
Brown also spoke about being surrounded by small, beautiful women on “The Bachelor”, “The Bachelorette”, and “Dancing with the Stars” and how it made her feel. See more in the clip above.
