Brittany SnowHairspray star Brittany Snow has spoken out about developed an eating disorder after landing her first big role.

Now 21 years old, Brittany first started watching her weight at 12 when she scored a part in US soap Guiding Light. She told MTVU.com recently: “I remember looking around at all these women who were on the soap opera who were working out and dieting.”

She started dieting herself but “took it to the extreme” and just “lived on pineapple” for two months. But as she lost weight, she received compliments from those around her and it reinforced the habit: “It kind of progressed into this thing where I needed to always be dieting and losing weight and more weight.”

“It became my life and I didn’t have any friends and this was definitely my best friend and I held on to it really tight.”

By 15, she was obsessed with weighing herself multiple times a day, with the scales reading just 85lbs: “I knew that was a really low number and I knew that my hair was falling out and I had really weird skin.”

“My face looked really weird and I was getting this fuzz on my face and I was always cold - always to the point of uncontrollably shaking. But I was more scared that 85 lbs. wasn’t good enough. I wanted to be lower.”

She checked into treatment for the eating disorder two years ago but still feels the pressure of Hollywood: “The eating stuff is still really hard to deal with. It’s still a struggle.”

She added if other girls find themselves in a similar position, “it’s very important to talk to [somebody,] anybody. Maybe the first step is just to talk to a friend about it. Probably they’ll relate in some way.”