Michelle Duggar of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting fame is opening up about a struggle with an eating disorder she had in high school.
The mom of 19 children, 48, said she wanted to go public with being bulimic in order to inspire others who might be going through similar hardships to get help.
“Before I came to know the Lord, I had been struggling in my self worth, just feeling like I needed to measure up to all my friends," Duggar says in Tuesday night’s new episode, People reports.
"I began to have a wrong view of who I was, I gained weight so easily,” she said. "I ended up starting a bad habit of making myself get sick after I ate. As I was in that process, no one knew."
In Growing Up Duggar, her four oldest daughters; Jana, 25, Jill, 23, Jessa, 22 and Jinger, 21, wrote about their mom’s bulimia struggle. She said at the time that it lasted for almost three years and ended when she met her husband, Jim Bob Duggar, at 16.
Duggar also said in the new episode she realizes most girls have the same struggles, and “life is too short to never have a chocolate chip cookie," but advises to be "wise in doing that."