Megan Brewer was 8 years old when she began obsessing over her body and calories.
She would stare at herself in the mirror for a long time and cry if she didn’t like what she saw. She dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer and was convinced that, to feel light on stage, she had to eat as little as possible.
The result was a routine you probably wouldn’t imagine: lots of exercise and almost no real food. Her ‘diet’ consisted of drinking nine cups of coffee a day.
As she told the Daily Mail, from a young age she was disgusted by eating things like fries or pizza, and that aversion grew along with the illness. Anorexia led her to depression and began to derail her dreams—the very ones she said she was pursuing.
In 2017, at the age of 21, she decided to enter a clinic specializing in eating disorders. At first, she was an outpatient, but it didn’t work, so she stayed inpatient all week, attending meals and several therapy groups, and only went home on weekends.
Today, she says she is healthy and still dedicated to dance, this time in a healthy way and with a balanced diet.
