Katharine McPhee Explains Why She'd Tell Her Younger Self to Never Go On That Diet

Katharine McPhee is opening up about her journey with body image and what she would tell her younger self.

The 38-year-old singer and actress talked to Yahoo Life about her struggles with body image growing up, including a battle with bulimia.

“When I was a teenager I had pictures of models on my wall and they were all very thin,” she said. “There [were] no other examples of fuller figured women.”

After completing an intensive inpatient program before the semi-finals of American Idol, Katharine began losing weight naturally while focusing on intuitive eating. Her weight became the subject of headlines.

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“There is a lot of focus on the way you look and the way that my body was transforming. I believe there was a whole story about like, ‘Wow, she’s lost weight. She used to be a size, whatever. Now she’s a size six,’” she said.

Kat discussed the advice that she’d give her younger self if she could go back to that time.

“What I would have said to myself is ‘Don’t go on that diet.’ Because that’s really what set me up for years and years of some bad behaviors,” she said. “The goal is to have peace and happiness throughout.”

Kat also talked about being at a specific size right now after giving birth to her son Rennie in early 2021.

“I feel so fortunate. Like I had a baby and my body just kind of fell to this weight and I’ve been so grateful because I like really like being in this weight for my personal preference,” she said.

“I came out of the pregnancy accepting, loving my body even more. So it was kind of an amazing journey for me to really struggle mentally, emotionally with my body changing and feeling uncomfortable with those changes and then coming out of it and doing photo shoots like a month after giving birth,” Kat added. “I look back at the pictures in my camera roll and I was proud of my body, and I was fuller than I am now … I would’ve never been able to do that kind of a shoot being in that weight 10 years ago.”

Kat also discussed the backlash her husband David Foster got when he praised her post-baby body.

“We do live in a world now where everything is under a microscope. You can’t even post a sweet caption like, ‘Wow! She looks amazing!’ And if it’s coming from your husband it’s like, ‘Well, why didn’t you say she looked amazing when she was 20, 25 pounds up?” Katharine said. “Not everything has to have so much meaning to it. It’s like, he felt like posting something. So, for me, I just felt like I had to go after the hysteria.”

Kat recently talked about the body image struggles she had while pregnant.