“Anorexia was there for me before I got into modeling, but because of the arena and the demands, the disease really got out of control for me. It's like being an alcoholic and going and being a bartender.”

“But life inevitably throws us curve balls, unexpected circumstances that remind us to expect the unexpected. I've come to understand these curve balls are the beautiful unfolding of both karma and current.”

“Eating disorders, body dysmorphia and a general dissatisfaction with one's life and body seems to ail too many young people.”

“From the time I started school, it was clear to everyone that I wasn't learning at the same pace as other kids.”

“I am not naturally that thin, so I had to go through everything from using drugs to diet pills to laxatives to fasting. Those were my main ways of controlling my weight.”

“I did some great work with my Calvin Klein ads on the motorcycle. It was really groundbreaking because people hadn't seen a woman actually riding a motorcycle before.”

“I feel like it's my responsibility to honestly cover a lot of subjects in part because I have two little girls and I really want them when they grow up to have a voice.”

“I had dropped out of school and was a runaway, so I didn't have family to fall back on if I didn't work. I didn't have a lot of other options of making money other than modeling.”

“I had my first seizure, and I had to go in for heart surgery.”

“I think that we can't deny the public's want for balancing out the images that are out there depicting women. Not all of us are 17 and a size two.”

“I was born in 1968, just eighteen months after my sister Chrisse and just one year after Dad passed the bar exam.”

“I was essentially paid to perpetuate the myth that we are all, or should at least try to be, 17 and a size 2 forever.”

“It not unusual for women with anorexia to suffer heart attacks.”

“Just as young people absorb all kinds of messages from the media, young girls learn what it means to be a woman by watching the older women in their lives.”

“Just because you're a different size doesn't mean you're sitting on the couch eating bonbons all day long watching TV.”

“Many women who have anorexia put their hearts in a compromised situation.”

“Motherhood has brought me many joys and insights, but the new perspective it granted me on the role I had inadvertently played in young women's lives for the 2 decades I spent in the modeling industry was downright sobering.”

“My doctor felt that the main contributing factor was so many years of malnutrition, especially during my formative years, even before I got into modeling.”

“My parents were both from the East and had moved to San Francisco only so my father could go to law school there.”

“My weight fluctuated when I was 30, and I did the unthinkable - I stepped out as a plus-sized model.”

“Part of treatment for drugs and alcohol is you abstain from these, but with eating disorders you can't abstain from food so the treatment is longer than drugs and alcohol.”

“The doctor asked what my diet was like and I had to sit down and realize it's not normal, and hadn't been normal for about 20 years.”

“The pressure was if I didn't get into that dress size someone else would - someone else would get the job.”

“Though my parents assured me over and over again that I wasn't stupid or slow, I sensed that my dyslexia was now a stigma on all of us.”

“We come in many different shapes and sizes, and we need to support each other and our differences. Our beauty is in our differences.”

“You have to find a balance with food in your life - you can't take out food. It can be absolutely terrifying.”