Katharine McPhee Bulemic

Katharine McPhee had bulimia for years but is all better now.

“American Idol” runner-up Katharine McPhee struggled for years with bulimia before seeking help, the singer said in an interview published Thursday. At her worst she would throw up as many as seven times a day, putting her singing career in jeopardy. It was like “putting a sledgehammer to your vocal cords,” McPhee told People magazine in an interview published on its Web site.

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McPhee, 22, told the magazine she sought help last fall after successfully auditioning for “American Idol.” She enrolled in an eating disorder center in Los Angeles and spent three months in therapy. “Growing up in Los Angeles and spending all those years in dance class, I’d been conscious of body image at a young age, and I went through phases of exercising compulsively and starving myself,” she said.

Now McPhee said she’s healthier thanks to the “intuitive eating” approach she learned in therapy. “If you look at a doughnut, people think it’s a fattening food. Why?” McPhee said. “Because if you eat it you’ll get fat? No, you’ll get fat if you eat 10 doughnuts.”

Actually, you won’t get fat if you eat 10 doughnuts, either unless you do it regularly. Conversely, very few fat people–and there are a lot of them–have ever eaten 10 doughnuts at one sitting.

I’m always a bit dubious of these eating disorders. I am reminded of George Carlin’s old line about anorexia: “Rich bitch don’t wanna eat . . . .”