CARRE OTIS

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

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.

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

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.

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

My days are jam-packed with carpools, classroom assistance, tending to chickens, dogs and seven acres of olive trees!

There comes a moment as a parent when you realize you will no longer be the center of your child's universe.

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

I'm proud that today, at 43 years old, I've come to value the aging process and focus on inner rather than outer beauty.

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 delight in my family obligations, but they leave little time for breaks let alone quick trips across the country.

I've learned to surround myself with women who lift me up and leave me feeling nurtured rather than drained.

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 believe that as women, we must commit ourselves to sustaining the progress made by our foremothers who fought so hard for women's equality and liberation.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

I didn't know what to do with calories.

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

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.