One can imagine my surprise today when I sat down to eat lunch and turned on Access Hollywood, which airs around noontime here in Pittsburgh. One of their stories was about Hairspray starlet Brittany Snow and how, when she was young, she had a bout with anorexia and cutting. It surprised me and also kind of opened my eyes in a way to the fact that nobody is perfect and we all have our inner demons and issues. The reason why I thought this is because Snow comes off as such a good girl in all of her roles that she’s played. I first loved her as an actress in the show American Dreams, which aired on ABC for a brief few years during my late teens.

Snow first developed anorexia around age 12. Her near-decade long struggle is finally now under control at age 21, according to an article in OK! Magazine. At 12, she began acting on the soap opera Guiding Light which caused her to begin excessively dieting and exercising. She entered a rehab program at age 19 and now has been a lot better since.

She also cut while dieting down to a dangerous 85 pounds at 15 years old. She wanted attention and “someone to tell her that everything was going to be okay.”

Now Snow has come off of a successful role in Hairspray as Amber Von Tussle. She is also starring in a Reebok commercial to help make young women aware of how to maintain a healthy, not dangerous, lifestyle. I think it’s great that women like Snow can make the best out of her rocky teenage years. Not everyone can come out as healthy as Snow, but she is definitely a role model for girls who are dealing with similar problems.