But don’t be fooled by the show, Kai says. The TV show made it seem like she had lost all her weight in 12 weeks, when this was not, in fact, true.

“I have people that come up to me and talk to me and ask me why they can’t lose 12 pounds in a week when I did. When I didn’t. It didn’t happen. It’s TV,” she said in an interview on the CBS ‘Early Show’. “I need to take blame and responsibility for the fact that I helped perpetuate a myth that’s dangerous.”

The myth, she says, is that while audiences are lead to believe that the weigh-ins occurred once every week on the same day, producers gave the contestant often more than a week to lose weight, to make the numbers on the scales more attractive. Kai also claims the weight los techniques the contestants were taught were not always healthy.

“The weight loss for that show is for ratings. People have to remember that ‘The Biggest Loser’ isn’t a weight-loss camp that happens to be filmed for TV. It’s a TV show that’s made to look like a weight-loss camp. So there was pressure from production and everybody involved in the show to make sure you had as big of numbers as possible every week.

“I left with a very poor mental body image,” she continued. “I found myself loathing what I looked like the more weight I dropped because of the pressure on me. And I found myself doing things like considering coffee a meal. And because of the mentality that I was surrounded with, and the pressure that was given at that show, it was considered acceptable to behave that way.”

Kai, who is now married, met her husband while she was filming the show.

“She came back with her hair falling out and we all finally all sat down and were like, ‘This isn’t healthy for you’,” he said.

Kai she is grateful that her mother and best friend, both registered nurses, along with her husband, saw the disturbing pattern in her eating behavior and staged an intervention. Kai has put on 70lbs again.

Talking about her experience on the show and going public with it is very important to her, Kai says.

“I participated in something that I feel is harmful to so many people, so I own responsibility to make it better. I’m not making any money off this. I am not getting anything out of it except for the fact that maybe I’m redeeming myself a little bit for being too much of a coward at that finale.”

Celebrities who have battled weight issues include Oprah Winfrey, Kirstie Alley, Sara Rue and Sharon Osbourne.

Images: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1183538, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1186277

As reported by www.dailymail.co.uk, the research was conducted on a group of 18 volunteers. During the research, the volunteers were told to cover their fingers with a given board and then mark their fingertips and knuckles using a pointer. The activity revealed that the volunteers had several misleading perceptions about their hands. Most of them misjudged the shape of their hands and assumed them to be wider and the fingers to be shorter. “These findings may well be relevant to psychiatric conditions involving body image such as anorexia nervosa, as there may be a general bias towards perceiving the body to be wider than it is” said Dr Matthew Longo, lead researcher.

Apparently, her strict dance schedules, lowered self esteem, and puberty together drove young Kristen Haglund to opt for a restricted diet chart. Following this her health declined and her weight became considerably low, which also led her menstrual cycle to cease. She could no more give her best to her passion, ballet, and soon she went into a state of severe depression. “The lie that nobody ever tells you is that I thought I was supposed to be happier and stronger by dieting and losing weight,” she said. “But that is just not true. All of these things that were supposed to be getting better by dieting were getting worse.”

Kirsten’s parents noticed she was getting thinner and thinner, and eventually took her to the doctor, where she was diagnosed with anorexia. The condition led her heart beat to drop drastically and her bones to stick out. “I would feel fatigued walking up six stairs,” thehollywoodgossip.com quotes the 21-year-old as saying. “I was a completely different person. It’s not a pretty sight.”

The stunning beauty never disclosed her weight during the competition, despite having an amazing figure, because she didn’t want to set standards for young women obsessed with losing weight.

After being crowned Miss America in 2008 and even now, Kirsten Haglund relentlessly works to spread awareness about eating disorders and a distorted self image that many growing young girls and boys are affected by these days. She describes the problem as: “Eating disorders have become an epidemic these days.”

Celebrities who have suffered from eating disorders include Mary-Kate Olsen,Sharon Osbourne, Daniel Johns and Jane Fonda.

Images: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kirsten_Haglund_Miss_America.jpg, Author: philpottm; http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kirsten_Haglund_headshot.png, Author: Matt Billings

In a bid to keep her frame lean, Jaimesuccumbed to a routine that involved starvation and binge and purge routines. Jaime Pressly fell for bulimia following pressure from the agencies and the modelling world. She explains that during the early days of her obsession with a thin frame, her diet consisted of only two muffins and some water which she describes to popeater.com: “I created an easy and foolproof diet – two English muffins a day and water. It was [really] one English muffin, but I counted it as two . . . after I’d split it open.”

Soon Jaime began a routine of bulimia: she would binge on food, then go to the bathroom and vomit. The model and actress, who now maintains a rather healthy frame, explains how her childhood friend and her boyfriend got to know about her bulimic ways and caught her while she was busy with her purging routines. imnotobsessed.com quotes the actress as saying: “Dawn was going into my bedroom to grab something and she walked past the bathroom and heard me, and (she) went and got her boyfriend and her boyfriend busted the door down and said, ‘You will not, absolutely not, do this.’”

Jaime Pressly goes on to add that it was the grave fear in their eyes because of which she realized that she had gone too far in her ways to maintain that skinny frame. This incident was a wakeup call and prompted her to give up her binge and purge habits.

Jaime now feels healthy and says it is important to find time for yourself.”You have to make time for yourself and find ‘me’ time, whether that means taking a 15-minute bath or taking time to work out while someone watches the kids,” she told odowa.fr.

Jaime Pressly has poured her heart out about her struggle with the eating disorder bulimia in her book ‘It’s Not Necessarily Not The Truth’. The model-actress, Jaime Pressly, who many young girls look up to when it comes to maintaining a healthy frame, talks about her weight gain after she delivered a child. “I don’t want to be a size 0. Not me! Sure, I wanted to lose my baby weight, but I didn’t want to lose my butt!” celebx quotes her as saying.

Other celebrities who have battled bulimia include Paula Abdul, Geri Halliwell and Sally Field.

Images: PR Photos,  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jaime_Pressly_Side2March09.jpg; Attribution: Thomas Crenshaw

However, Tara has always maintained that she has never been anorexic and has always considered reports nothing more than mere rumors. In her defence, Tara, quoted by caringonline.com, said: “I’m not too thin. I go up 10 pounds, I go down 10 pounds. I was thin for a movie that I just finished. Now they’re going to see me and say I’m too fat because I’ve gained 10 pounds…I can’t win!”

The actress, who was once Hollywood’s young darling after shooting to fame in movies like ‘American Pie’ and ‘National Lampoon’s Van Wilder’, fell from grace after her drinking excesses. She starred in a reality TV show called ‘Taradise’, which basically followed her from one drunken party to another, highlighting the actress’ party lifestyle. The show, was a “mistake”, she now realizes. But it seems it was too late: her reputation had already been damaged, and she was now the media’s darling to point at and ridicule.

Ever since her pictures appeared in a celebrity magazine wherein she posed in a skimpy bikini, with her dangerously thin frame, reports ignited that the one time star had to be dealing with anorexia. For this, Tara has a simple explanation. “I live on the beach, so I get up and jog in the sand,” she told ifitandhealthy.com.

She has also remarked the way everyone talks about every action of hers and becomes judgmental about it, and acuse her of being excessive. “If I have a drink in my hand, it doesn’t make me an alcoholic,” popcrunch.com quotes her as saying. If I want a glass of wine, I want a glass of wine. I shouldn’t be afraid of it because of what the media might say. Anything you do, you’re screwed. That’s the lesson I’ve learned.

“What have I ever really done? Dance on a table? Who doesn’t drink with their friends and have a good time? I don’t understand why people punish others for being happy.”

However these media rumors aren’t always without some truth to them: in December 2008 Tara checked herself into the Promises rehabilitation facility, one that has treated many celebrities and their addictions. According to PerezHilton.com, the 34-year-old actress entered the facility for a 60-day detox program.

“Rehab saved my life,” she said. “Before, I used to think about tomorrow and I hated it. Now, I can’t wait because I am clean and sober and I am excited. I wanted a future, and that wasn’t going to happen with what I was doing before.”

Other celebrities who have entered rehab  include Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Ben Affleck and Charlie Sheen.

Images: PR Photos

In an interview Elisa said she was a “hard core anorexic” between the years 1993 and 1995. Carinonline.com quotes the actress as saying: “At first, I’d eat no fat. Then, I’d just eat breakfast–cereal and toast–and not eat again until night.”

Elisa continued to lose weight over the years and became obsessed with the fear of putting on weight. At the height of her illness this 5ft 6in tall beauty weighed only 90lbs and was working full time. Eventually her weight reduced so much she suffered from a mild heart attack, wikipedia.org reported. This was a wakeup call for the red-haired beauty.

Elisa, now, travels the country and talks about her struggles to help others. She has also written a story for ‘Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul’, documenting her struggle. Now that her battle with anorexia is over, Elisa is healthy and working again. She has worked on many television series and movies after her battle with anorexia.

Other celebrities who have suffered from anorexia include ‘Ally McBeal’ star Calista Flockhart, Kate Beckinsale and Ashlee Simpson-Wentz.

Images: PR Photos

At the height of her illness, Dey weighed a mere 92 pounds and had reportedly stopped menstruating. Her skin color even became orange because she was eating so many carrots. Anorexia researchers say that this is a common trend observed in people suffering from eating disorders: they eat exclusively one type of food.

Susan reportedly realized she had a problem during a cast party at the beach, nndb.com writes, when Danny Bonaduce saw her in a bikini and commented, “What’s wrong with you?! Your skin is orange! You look disgusting.”

20 years later, Susan gave an exclusive interview, in which she admitted she was still not over her eating disorder.

“I’m not in the clear yet – I’m still trying to overcome my anorexia,” Susan admitted in a 1993 interview with The Enquirer. “It’s something that has been plaguing my life.”

“Beating a severe eating disorder is something you can not do alone,” she added.

Eventually she did overcome her eating disorder. According to wikipedia, Dey is now healthy and works as a member of the board at UCLA’s Rape Treatment Center.

Susan Dey

Susan Dey is a critically acclaimed actress, who moved on to another television series, ‘LA Law’, after her four-year stint with ‘The Partridge Family’. Here, she played the critically acclaimed role of Grace van Owen that won her a Golden Globe, three statues at the Emmy’s and many other nominations.

Other celebrities who have suffered from eating disorders include Mary-Kate Olsen,Sharon Osbourne, Daniel Johns and Kate Beckinsale.

Images: PR Photos

Reston’s mother, Miriam, got an indication long before that her daughter Ana had started acquiring eating disorders when she started saying ‘no’ to meals. Miriam was quoted by The Washington Post as saying: “I noticed something was wrong when she returned from Japan. She (Ana) was too thin when she returned and when I told her to eat something, she would say: ‘Mom please don’t fight with me; there is nothing wrong with me, I’m fine’.”

The model’s cousin told the Washington Post that Reston also battled bulimia which is an eating disorder characterized by recurrent binge eating followed by defensive vomiting. Ana Carolina acquired an extreme fear of becoming fat.

Shocked at the premature death of her daughter, Reston’s mother Miriam was quoted by the O Globo newspaper as advising other mothers whose children are suffering from eating disorders: “Take care for your children because their loss is irreparable.” She added, “Nothing can make the pain go away. No money in the world is worth the life of your child.”

Ana Carolina Reston Macan was a Brazilian fashion model who started her modeling career at a tender age of 13, after winning a beauty contest in her hometown. She was associated with some renowned modeling agencies like Elite, Ford and L’Equipe in various countries like China, Japan, Mexico and Turkey. She acquired fame after her appearance in Giorgio Armani ad campaigns.

Some celebrities who have battled anorexia include Kate Beckinsale, Calista Flockheart,Courtney Thorne-Smith and Ashlee Simpson-Wentz.

Images: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/469720, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1191591

At the tender age of 11, Tracey was found to be suffering from anorexia by her paediatrician, Wikipedia reports. He made the diagnosis after noticing she has lost weight after a growth spurt. In her alleged desperate attempt to not grow up, Tracey had been starving herself.

When working for ‘Growing Pains’, Tracey gained some weight and the script was filled with “fat” jokes for many episodes. At the age of 19, Tracey reached 133 pounds, which is when her compulsive dieting began.

“I was made fun of by a casting agent. If I were a different person, it probably would have rolled off my back,” Tracey told PEOPLE in an exclusive interview. “But I have the kind of personality where I will let those kinds of comments affect me. I’ve always wanted to please people.”

She then went to an established endocrinologist who put her on 500 calories per day diet, despite knowing her history with anorexia. She achieved her goal of reaching 113lbs in two months. Tracey remembered that time as being uplifting. “It was so wonderful. All of a sudden, I wasn’t awkward Tracey. People were saying I was pretty. I fell right into the pitfall of ‘I can’t lose this constant praise’.”

On the surface, Tracey had it all. A loving boyfriend, Roby Marshall, whom she later married, a supportive family and a hit television series. At the peak of her illness Tracey had starved herself down to an estimated 80lbs and was terribly frail.

Tracey Gold

One day Tracey’s mother, Bonnie saw Tracey changing in the dressing room of the sets of ‘Growing Pains’ and was horrified by her skeletal appearance. Tracey had been wearing baggy clothes to hide her growing thinness and had managed to deceive her parents this far. This revelation did not force Tracey to stop starving herself. Though she went for regular psychotherapy, Tracey continued to lose weight for another two years.

During a Christmas season of her sitcom, Tracey was finally suspended from the show for her thin appearance. This made Tracey one of the first celebrities to be removed from a role due to anorexia. Five days later she checked into a hospital.

After that she fought the disease on her own with help from a nutritionist in UCLA. She slowly got better. “They’ve stabilized my weight now and I’m healthy enough to know that I don’t want to lose any more,” she told PEOPLE.

“I am fighting it, but it’s hard. It consumes my every thought.”

Tracey has written a book about her illness and recovery titled ‘Room to Grow’.

Other celebrities who have suffered from eating disorders include Mary-Kate Olsen,Sharon Osbourne, Daniel Johns and Kate Beckinsale.

Images: PR PHOTOS

In her book, she writes that she was “obsessed” with her body and with her appearance during the time when her career with the Spice Girls was at its peak. In the gym, instead of checking my posture or position, I was checking the size of my bottom, or to see if my double chin was getting any smaller,” the BBC quotes the actress as writing.

Victoria also claims that her image obsession began in the early days of the Spice Girls, founded in 1994, when management told all five members to slim down. Years of dieting ensued, a time during which, as Victoria, known as Posh Spice, claims, was fuelled by fellow band mate Geri Halliwell’s suggestion to take liquid food substitutes.

“I began living on vegetables and nothing else. But it never occurred to me that I had an eating disorder,” fametastic.co.uk quotes the star as saying. Later, Victoria reportedly succumbed to binge eating, with the BBC reporting her as saying she’s eat 10 bowls of cereal in one sitting.

But while Victoria, who is skinnier now than she ever was, admits to being obsessed with her body  in the past, she vehemently denies she suffers from eating disorders.

Victoria Beckham in 1999

“I think there’s a big difference between someone having an eating disorder and someone who is controlled about what they eat,” she told People magazine.

“There’s a big difference, and every now and then of course I go out and eat what I like. But I do try to be quite disciplined in the way that I eat.

“I eat really healthy, I love Japanese food, lots of fish, any sort of fish, any sort of vegetable, lots of fruit, that kind of thing,” Victoria continues.

When asked about the size 0 obsession and eating disorders among models, she said:  “All of the girls – I know quite a few models and they actually eat, they’re just naturally thin girls. And just because you’re thin it doesn’t mean you have an eating disorder. What is more of a concern is the age of the girls. Some of the girls on the catwalk are 13 years old and that is more worrying to me than the size of the girl, to be honest,” People magazine quotes her as saying.

To all the controversies surrounding her due to her visible weight loss, Victoria has to say: “I keep fit by running after my three boys all day.”

Other celebrities who have battled anorexia include Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Alba, Calista Flockheart,Courtney Thorne-Smith and Ashlee Simpson-Wentz.

Former Spice Girls band mates Geri Halliwell and Melanie Chisholm also battled eating disorder.

Images: prphotos.com; http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VictoriaBeckham.jpg – Author: Gerrit van Aaken.