Lauren Alaina battled an eating disorder while on 'American Idol'

foxnews.com:

Country music singer-songwriter Lauren Alaina is getting candid about struggling with an eating disorder while making her debut into the spotlight.

Alaina competed on the 10th season of "American Idol" when she was in high school. She told Hannah Brown on her "Better Tomorrow" podcast that she was battling an eating disorder at the time. "I started having problems with [an] eating disorder in middle school and then in 10th grade, I go on ‘American Idol,’" Alaina said on the podcast episode, which aired Wednesday. "And I was in my very awkward, chubby phase." Alaina was runner-up when she competed on "American Idol" in 2011.

Scotty McCreery was the show's 10th season winner. Alaina explained the "biggest criticism" she received were from her high school peers for deciding to go on "national television." "I was always confident on the stage, the one thing I wasn’t confident [about] was my weight probably like my whole life," Alaina said. "Well not my whole life, but starting in eighth grade-ish because I became a cheerleader, and I was a softball player before that, and so I was not built the same." She recalled being "between a teenager and a woman" when she competed on the popular singing show.

Alaina was 16 years old when she went on "American Idol" and was shocked by the criticism she received about her body at that age. "People commented a lot on my weight. … What kind of evil humans can comment on a 16-year-old child is beyond me now.