Modelling Days

When I was 14 I wanted to become an actress and my parents allowed me to join an acting/model agency called Kamera Kids in London.
I went on several auditions but it wasn't until one audition that really changed my life.
It was an audition for a catalogue at a model agency in London called Elite Models and even though I didn't get the job they called my mother up a week later and the model agency wanted to see me again so off we went back to the agency and they measured me and took all my stats at this age I was still maturing and was around 11 stone in weight. My mother was told that they wanted to take me on but I was too overweight and needed to lose some weight before they would consider me for their books.
So my journey and battle with food began I was told I had to get down to a size 10 from a size 14 dress size and I worked hard to lose this weight and started running this is where my love of running comes from.
I was doing well or so I thought but each time I went back to the agency they told me I needed to lose more and more weight. I had got down to a size 10 and now they wanted me down to a size 8. They said that they would take some screen shots for me and I had to travel half way across London to have my pictures taken by a photographer just him and I in those days I didn't think about safety but it was okay and he was a genuine photographer for the agency.
The screen shoot was fantastic and he took some lovely pictures which sadly I never got to keep in then end as the agency kept them. I was so tired of dieting I scoffed a mars bar that day and felt terribly guilty.
I was desperately trying to get down to a size 8 and was told I had a small window of time to do this or the agency weren't interested in me.
I started taking laxative's and eating and throwing up and so my battle with the weight and food turned into bulimia I was so thin by this stage that my family thought I was going anorexic.
The next time I turned up at the agency they said they would cut my hair short but because I was still overweight in their eyes that they would be embarrassed to send me to Vidal Sassoon to have it cut. I was mortified and just got deeper into my bulimia.
I would starve myself then binge eat then throw up then take laxative's. This went on for two years and every agency I went to said the same damn thing I was too overweight even though I was stuck at a size 10 and by now very thin.
My battle with the weight went right on until I was at least 18 and no matter how hard I tried I could not lose the weight they wanted. I was stuck at 9.5 stones and a size 10.
I still have trouble with my food even today and can starve myself for days then go on a binge and want to throw up but I have learnt to curb these feelings and be strong against them.
My daughter has recently expressed an interest in modelling and I am very dubious about her getting involved with it due to my disastrous time within the model industry.
I think if I was ever to let her get involved I would monitor it better than my parents did and would make sure she was eating properly and pull the plug on the whole thing if she was unable to get to a silly weight as deemed the norm for the model industry.
These days there are a lot more plus size models about and this is a good thing and I applaud many of the sites that use plus size models after all they are a true size and not a size as set by an industry that is so vain and think that being stick thin is a normal size.
I do understand that some people are naturally thin but for most of us this isn't the case and I had to work so hard at it that it made me very ill.
Don't get me wrong I am grateful for the opportunities that I had as a teenager but the scars it has left behind are just not worth the trouble it causes for the future you.

Newt