Demi Lovato "wishes she had somebody" to help her when she struggled as a child star.
Demi Lovato wants others to speak out about their mental health struggles
The 30-year-old pop singer shot to fame as a teenager on the Disney Channel with roles in 'Camp Rock' and 'Sonny With a Chance' but developed an eating disorder and ended up in rehab a number of times over her struggles with addictions and spoke out on Mental Health Action Day (18.05.023) where she admitted she wanted to "help others" with her memoir 'Staying Strong'.
Speaking on 'The Today Show', she said: "The very first time that I went to treatment was when I was 18. I went from my eating disorder, and I went for self-harm and emotional issues. And when I came out with that experience, I was faced with the decision of either 'keep your mouth shut and not say anything' or 'share your experience strength and hope with another person in hopes that it affects them in a positive way.' I wanted to help others. I wish that I had somebody when I was 13 years old and having an eating disorder and starving myself. I wanted somebody in the public eye to say that 'Hey, this is what I've gone through, and you don't have to choose that route."
The 'Confident' hitmaker went on to remind others that help is always available and recalled how the body norms portrayed during her days as a teen star were at the detriement of her mental health and "fed" into her eventual eating disorder.
She added: "I want them to know that talking to people and asking for help is more than okay and is absolutely what you should do. When you're looking at images of people with perfect bodies, you start to look at yourself, and you start to pick yourself apart, and it's hard to grow up in a world where that's right in front of your face and at your fingertips at all times. I grew up in a period of time where young Hollywood was very, very, very thin, and that was the look, and I think that had a really negative impact on my eating, just on my mental health, which I think fed into my eating disorder."