Katharine McPhee says she feared having an eating disorder relapse during her pregnancy
Katharine McPhee has opened up about her fear she'd experience an eating disorder relapse while pregnant with her and David Foster's baby.
Last week, the American Idol alum welcomed her first child, a baby boy, with Foster, 71. The performer said the "biggest challenge" was her history of "body-image stuff" in an interview with Dr. Berlin's Informed Pregnancy Podcast.
"It just suddenly came up in a way that hadn't been present in a long time," McPhee, 36, said revealing she "felt really stable in my life in the last four or five years, and my weight has been more consistent."
Katharine McPhee and David Foster welcomed their first child together. Instagram
READ MORE: Katharine McPhee welcomes first child with husband David Foster
"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," she said.
McPhee said she regrets being "so hard on herself" when she gained 40 lbs. (approx. 18kg) in her pregnancy.
"I look back at these pictures and my husband was documenting every day because I'd be like, 'Take a picture of me now. Am I showing?'" she said.
She eventually decided to reconnect with a psychiatrist she'd previously seen before auditioning for Idol. She told McPhee that "it's really common for women who have struggled with eating disorders in the past to have almost a relapse, in some sense, when they enter pregnancy."
Katharine McPhee opened up about her previous experiences with disordered eating and bulimia. WireImage
"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 said. "It wasn't like he gave me a bottle of pills and said, 'Here's your pills for anxiety.' That's not what he did when he met with me, but he was just talking through it and asking questions."
McPhee recalls feeling "very obsessed with food" in her first trimester and well into her second. "You're like, 'Is this just the eating disordered-version of me or is this actually my body?'" she said. "Suddenly, the cues felt really different, and I didn't know how to interpret them. When I did eat, I would feel really full and it was very confusing … Suddenly I didn't have any of it figured out."
The Smash actress is now getting more comfortable with her body being "a little bit thicker."
This is McPhee's first child and Foster's sixth. The music executive already shares Sara, 40, Erin, 38, and Jordan, 34, with his second wife Rebecca Dyer. He's also the father to Allison, 50, and Amy, 47, from prior relationships.
News broke of their pregnancy in October 2020, a year after the couple tied the knot.
If you, or someone you know needs support relating to eating disorders, please call The Butterfly Foundation on 1800 33 4673. In an emergency, call 000.
