Emmerdale star Gemma Oaten has revealed she was so weak during her 13-year battle with anorexia she was on the brink of death.
The TV favourite also said the eating disorder triggered a heart attack when she was a teenager.
She said: “At 12 years old a medical assessment pulled me from my home and into a psychiatric unit.
“I was so weak they had to push me in a wheelchair and I was told that if I didn’t eat and drink within 24 hours that I’d be dead.”
“I’ve had some amazing experiences. But I’ve also had some really frightening ones, like a heart attack in my late teens.
(Image: ITV)
“That heart attack was my body failing in the grips of an eating disorder. I was in the grips of that monster for 13 years.”
Gemma, 35, who played troubled Rachel Breckle on Emmerdale, added: “People often think and hear that an eating disorder is a way of controlling something and that’s what I believed, but ultimately you lose control of everything.”
Her parents first realised there was a problem when she was just 10 but docs didn’t take them seriously.
They set up eating disorder charity SEED (Support and Empathy for Eating Disorders) to help people who are suffering.
(Image: PA)
Gemma said: “Eating disorders are deadly and no-one has to die from them but people still do. Rapid weight loss or weight gain that has no medical cause is an external expression of something that is already there.
“Waiting for the weight to change isn’t going to stop what is already there.”
Gemma spoke out about her experience at a TEDx event, which can be watched at ted.com/tedx
