A well-meaning compliment nearly cost me my life [Video]

When Lauren Hastings was 13 she started going to the gym. 

At first, the teenager loved learning how to use the weights and prepping healthy meals for herself and her two older sisters. But when people started complimenting Lauren on how her body looked, she wasn’t sure what to think. 

‘I don’t know if I enjoyed it or if it made me insecure,’ she admits.

It was a feeling that sparked the start of a 12-year eating disorder that would almost cost Lauren her life. 

For the next three years she ate the same foods – stacks of veg and protein – every single day, for fear of what might happen if she veered outside the strict parameters. Then, one day, she started purging.

‘I don’t know why I was sick the first time, but from that day I would throw up multiple times every single day for years,’ Lauren remembers. 

All the while, she continued to exercise obsessively, visiting her local gym before work and then another …