Jessica Alba Reveals the Troubling Reason Why She "Stopped Eating" in Her 20s

Jessica Alba has opened up about a dangerously extreme diet she tried in her younger days — explaining she "stopped eating" to alter her body in such a way that she would be less likely to be "preyed upon" by men. 

"I was meant to feel ashamed if I tempted men," the actress said at the Goop health summit in Los Angeles, as cited in The Hollywood Reporter. "Then I stopped eating a lot when I became an actress. I made myself look more like a boy so I wouldn't get as much attention."

She explained that the pressure to take such an extreme approach actually originated with her own family — who advised her not to wear the Pepe Jeans she coveted, but accentuated her "voluptuous" body, specifically her "booty."

Jessica Alba Reveals Her Post-Baby Diet — and the Food That's Her "Only Happiness"

Alba said she was able to find more peace with food and her body after she became a mother — carrying, delivering, and nourishing a baby. “That was the dopest s--- I’d ever done," she said. "So then I came into my body as a woman finally."

Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow moderated the panel about women in Hollywood with Alba, Taraji P. Henson, Olivia Wilde, and Busy Philipps.