Claire Richards has candidly opened up on her struggles with body image since rising to fame as a member of Steps at the age of just 18.
The singer, now 44, became a household name thanks to her time in the popular '90s band and has previously spoke about how she struggled with her relationship with her body - going from "dangerously thin" to "obese".
And she admits that it's still a "struggle everyday" to keep her slim figure, but confessed that her weight struggles first came about in the early days as a musician.
She revealed all to Sophie Ellis-Bextor on her Spinnin' Plates podcast as she said: "All my issues started when I got into the band.
"Not even Steps, the first band, we were put on a diet immediately and told to lose weight, I was 18, the things that I did from then on, all I ate was peas and fish fingers for ages.
"The day of the audition for Steps, they said they wanted me but wanted me to lose weight."
She continued: "I'm better now but it is still something that is in my head every single day and I think also knowing the things that we had to deal with, was airbrush.
"I remember going for a meeting years ago and our record company were trying to persuade us to do FHM, the way they persuaded us, or tried to persuade us to do it was, they came and they brought two photographs and said this is the photo - the airbrushed photo - but this is what it looked like before, so look what we can do, we can make you look like this - and that was the selling point."
The mum-of-two went on to explain how she finds it "difficult" that kids these days have easy access to editing tools on their phones and revealed she has a "complicated" relationship with food.
Claire added: "I don't remember it when I was a kid, we had three meals a day, I don't ever remember my mum being on a diet.
"It wasn't something I had growing up at all, I was quite sporty at school, I always had big legs and a big bum, I don't think it was an issue until I started working.
"I've gone from being dangerously thin to obese and I honestly do believe it's all part of the same, if it's an eating disorder, it's one extreme to the other."
And she admitted people often have a "lack of understanding" over what makes people overweight, saying it's not always a case of being lazy.
Following the split-up of Steps, Claire previously revealed she went up to a size 20, before losing six stone in 2017.
