“American Idol” judge Kara DioGuardi has revealed her secret about an eating disorder and her course of treatment when she was younger. While she was never anorexic or bulimic, she just used food as a way to comfort herself when things weren’t going that well.

“I had kind of a binge eating disorder where instead of dealing with my emotions, I would stuff them down with food. I never threw up or starved myself. It was an eating disorder. I actually went into a treatment center for it.” DioGuardi explains the root of her problem, “It was definitely that excess eating to kind of just stuff all the emotions down and the emotions were that I really was a creative kid who didn’t know she was creative and didn’t have those outlets because I was always afraid to join the theater group and not perform.”

DioGuardi places the blame on her food problems on those insecurities while growing up. After she moved out to L.A. to become a songwriter she became healthier, claiming that the moment she started to do music she didn’t have any of those problems anymore. It has helped her so much that Kara wanted to share her relief and has built a recording studio inside “Phoenix House,” a Los Angeles treatment center helping recovering addicts heal through music. “It’s real therapeutic,” she says.

Kudos to Dioguardi for talking about her issues with binge eating. I’m the driver of the “I hate Kara on Idol” bandwagon, but you gotta give the girl her some credit for speaking out on this because this is a serious issue that isn’t taken seriously enough!

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[Extra]