Anorexic woman becomes underwear model… for curvy women

An anorexic who plunged in weight after suffering depression has turned her life around by putting on THREE STONE to become a sexy underwear model for curvy women.

Alice Jackson, 26, suffered from the eating disorder during her first year at Bournemouth University in 2006.

The retail student became obsessed with her weight and went running for up to two hours every day while eating just a handful of lettuce leaves at night.

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As a result, 5ft 9ins Alice plunged from 9st 11lbs to a dangerously low 7st 10lbs in just three months – four stone below the recommended healthy weight for her height.

Her dress size also dropped from size eight to a skinny size six.

Alice finally decided to get help after her parents told her she was too thin when she returned home to Norwich in June 2006.

Her university GP referred her to a hospital who confirmed she was anorexic and underweight for her height.

She spent a year of counselling with the Somerset and Wessex Eating Disorders Association (SWEDA), and eventually began to get back to a healthy weight.

Five years on, Alice now weighs 11 stone and has been chosen as a finalist for fuller figure lingerie firm Curvy Kate’s annual ‘Star in a Bra’ competition.

Alice, who also boasts a whopping 30FF bust, said: “It started when I was in my first year of university when I was 18.

“I started to put on a lot of weight and wasn’t confident so I went home at Christmas and decided to go on a diet.

“It spiralled into cutting down my food and over exercising and before I knew it I was eating very little.

“I was controlled by not eating so my weight went down pretty rapidly.

“When I got to June (2006) and I was doing Race for Life, my parents were like ‘you’re too thin, you need to see someone’.

“I didn’t feel well, I felt really ill and had no energy because I was eating so little and starving myself and over exercising so running on empty.

“That was a really difficult summer. It’s a horrible thing to be trapped in your thoughts about food and weight.

“I felt really really depressed and I didn’t care if I did, I just felt awful, all I could think about was food and calories.

“I went to my doctor at university and she said I was underweight. She referred me to hospital so they could take all my details.

“I went to SWEDA and got counselling which was amazing.

“They said to me I was only going to start feeling better when I started eating again.

“I started to feel better and eat more normally in my second year of university.

“By the end I had got to a healthy weight. I was still slim but I wasn’t controlled by calories.”

Single Alice lives in London has worked as a footwear researcher for the last 15 months.

She added: “My weight has gone up gradually but I’ve been at 11 stones for a good year and a half.

“I feel happy with myself, my body feels like it’s at its natural shape.

“When I was anorexic I used to lie in bed and could feel all my bones.

“It was just a really horrible time to be so trapped, I thought I would never get better.

“It’s so nice to be able to eat again and to be able to have things because I was so strict with myself before.

“There’s a lot of things I didn’t eat, I didn’t eat chocolate at all and never had bread either.

“But I love chocolate now, it’s my favourite thing to have as a treat.

“I am confident in my body and being healthy and I think it’s really important women don’t keep feeling dissatisfied with themselves because people tell them to lose half a pound.

“I’m happy to be curvy and I’m proud to be curvy and I think that’s important.”

Alice’s friends entered her for a modelling competition with Curvy Kate and she was stunned when the organisers said she had made the final.

She is up against 30 other curvy models competing in an online vote to be crowned the new model who will sport next year’s range of underwear. The winner will be announced later this year.