Model Sophie Nolan wants to warn girls about eating disorders after suffering three heart attacks

Model Sophie Nolan is speaking out about the terrifying consequences of eating disorders after suffering three heart attacks before the age of 25. “It’s not worth it,” she says of starving yourself to be thin.

At her smallest, the 5’10” girl weighed only 88 pounds, but still exercised over 7 hours a day. Like many who suffer from eating disorders, Sophie felt like her eating disorder was her “only way to cope and my only way to have control of something. I just wanted to be perfect.” She spoke with New Zealand’s Waikato Times about her struggle in an attempt to warn others and help others get help.

“I would get up and the first thing I would think about was food, and how I was going to eat and exercise that day,” she said. “When you are in your eating disorder, you don’t think you have a problem.” She got a wakeup call when she collapsed from a heart attack, “After being rushed to the emergency room the doctor told me: your heart can’t handle this, you are going to die.”

Sophie was 17 when she first started getting help, but didn’t start “really working at it,” until age 23. And recovery isn’t something that just happens and is done it’s still something she has to work at every day.

Eating disorders are commonly thought to be a predominantly female problem, but men also suffer from anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders, but it can be even harder for them to get help because of the amplified stigma for men.

Click here for more about eating disorders and to find out how to get help.