Hilary Duff Opens Up On 'Horrifying' Eating Disorder During Teenage Years

Hilary Duff is getting candid about her battle with an eating disorder when she was a teen.

Duff, 35, revealed in a new interview that she struggled with a "horrifying" eating disorder when she was 17 because she was conscious of her looks on camera while working as a child star.

"Because of my career path, I can't help but be like, 'I am on camera and actresses are skinny,'" she told Women's Health Australia. "It was horrifying."

Over time, she learned to embrace her body and focused on training her strength instead of losing weight.

"[I'm] appreciating my health, doing activities that make me feel strong instead of just bettering the outside of my body," the mom of three added. "Spending time with people that make me feel good and share similar views on health and body positivity and getting enough sleep and balance in my diet."

Trainer Dominic Leeder, who worked with the "Lizzie McGuire" actress, spoke to the magazine about his approach to training her and shared his thoughts on why fitness is important to Duff.

"I don't feel like she'll mind me saying this: yes, her fitness and health are hugely important to Hilary," he told the magazine. "What's more important to her is her family and work. When she comes home from work, she wants to spend time with her family because she spends very little time with them when she's hard at work, so every moment counts."

Leeder went on to reveal how they started her workout regimen and changed her diet.

"When I met Hilary, we decided to focus on resistance training, because we wanted to build lean muscle mass and up her metabolism," he said. "Her diet was also a huge factor and I wanted to make sure that she was eating the correct amount of macros for the goal that she needed."

According to the trainer, due to her busy work schedule, working out is not always at the forefront of Duff's priorities, so they took a holistic approach to her training and found the combination that works for her.

"After reaching her initial goal, we had to find a new goal around [her priorities]," he added. "Setting the new goal [with Hilary] was a struggle. What we ended up going with was to maintain what we have while still having a fantastic life work/balance that's important to her."

Duff rose to fame as a child with her breakout roles in "Casper Meets Wendy" in 1998 and her Disney Channel series "Lizzie McGuire," which ran from 2001 to 2004, People reported.

This was not the first time Duff opened up about her relationship with her body.

In May, she posed nude for the cover of Women's Health magazine and shared that she was now more confident about her body.

Duff, who shares 10-year-old son Luca with ex Mike Comrie and two daughters with husband Matthew Koma, admitted in her interview with the magazine that she didn't fully accept her body until she had her 3-year-old daughter Banks and realized that she was "powerful" for becoming a mom again after a divorce.

"I'm proud of my body," she told the magazine at the time. "I've gotten to a place of being peaceful with the changes my body has gone through.

She continued, "I think that at 34 I have just gained a lot of respect for my body. It's taken me all of the places I need to go. It's helped me build a beautiful family. I feel like the older I get, the more confident I get in my own skin. And my body's been many different shapes and sizes and I'm really just fascinated by, one, being a woman. And two, all the changes that your body can go through throughout your lifetime."