Katharine McPhee just welcomed her first child, a son, with husband David Foster, but the 36-year-old singer and actress recently opened up about her struggles with the pregnancy and how it affected her body image. After revealing she was pregnant in December, the pair welcomed a baby boy together earlier this week, and McPhee then sat down on “Dr. Berlin’s Informed Pregnancy Podcast,” to share her experience.
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The “American Idol” alum had previously told People of her past experience with an eating disorder, and she went on to explain on the podcast that the most difficult part of pregnancy for her “was really the body issue stuff.” McPhee then elaborated, “It just suddenly came up in a way that hadn't been present in a long time,” referring to her past struggles with self image.
While she admitted that she feels more in control now, McPhee explained, “But feeling like there was a relapse after getting pregnant was really shocking and upsetting and concerning for me, because I was suddenly so obsessed with food, starting from this first trimester, and I had such a distortion of the way that I looked.”
However, McPhee revealed that she quickly took action once she realized the headspace she was in, reaching out to her old psychiatrist from her “American Idol” days. “It made me feel so much better that I wasn't alone in that headspace ... by just meeting with him and him talking me through it,” she remembered.
McPhee shared that while her pregnancy brought forth an onslaught of anxiety, she was able to work through it and is now feeling better in her body. “I weathered it and I'm just really grateful I'm at the end of it that I feel this good and that I look in the mirror and I'm like, 'Yeah, my legs, my thighs, my arms are a little bit thicker, but I'm okay with it.'"
