The team here at Models Direct were very happy to read that Alice Jackson, a former anorexic, has turned her life around by gaining three stone and is now a successful plus-size lingerie model.

The 26-year old began suffering from an eating disorder when she first started university in 2006. In just three months she plummeted from a healthy 9st 11lbs to 7st 10lbs, which at 5’9” put her four stone below the recommended healthy weight for her height.

Alice said “I started to put on a lot of weight and wasn’t confident so I went home at Christmas and decided to go on a diet.

“It spiralled into cutting down my food and over exercising and before I knew it I was eating very little.

“I was controlled by not eating so my weight went down pretty rapidly.

“When I got to June (2006) and I was doing Race for Life, my parents were like ‘you’re too thin, you need to see someone’.

“I didn’t feel well, I felt really ill and had no energy because I was eating so little and starving myself and over exercising so running on empty.

“That was a really difficult summer. It’s a horrible thing to be trapped in your thoughts about food and weight.

“I felt really depressed and I didn’t care if I did, I just felt awful, all I could think about was food and calories.

“I went to my doctor at university and she said I was underweight. She referred me to hospital so they could take all my details.

“I went to SWEDA and got counselling which was amazing. They said to me I was only going to start feeling better when I started eating again.

“I started to feel better and eat more normally in my second year of university. By the end I had got to a healthy weight. I was still slim but I wasn’t controlled by calories.”

Jackson added: “My weight has gone up gradually but I’ve been at 11 stones for a good year-and-a-half.

“I feel happy with myself, my body feels like it’s at its natural shape. When I was anorexic I used to lie in bed and could feel all my bones.

“It was just a really horrible time to be so trapped, I thought I would never get better. It’s so nice to be able to eat again and to be able to have things because I was so strict with myself before.

“I am confident in my body and being healthy and I think it’s really important women don’t keep feeling dissatisfied with themselves because people tell them to lose half a pound.

“I’m happy to be curvy and I’m proud to be curvy and I think that’s important” said Jackson, who five years later is now 11 stone and has a 30FF bust.

As a pro-diversity modelling agency we found this story really inspirational – Alice really has has turned her life around and she has even been chosen as a finalist for fuller figure lingerie firm Curvy Kate’s annual ‘Star in a Bra’ competition.