A 30 year old woman, Helen Gillespie who has starved herself for twenty years in a bid to stay young has been left with the body of an elderly woman.
Helen began dieting when she was just ten years old, because she was afraid of growing up and as she got older, she began dreading adult responsibilities, giving her more reason to starve herself.
As a result of her drastic dieting she missed puberty as a teenager and didn't have her first period until she was 26.
More so, she never developed breasts and was forced to wear prosthetics made for cancer patients.
She said: "I never developed properly, so I've got a child's frame - I don't have hips and I'm completely flat chested.
When she started dieting, Helen limited her food intake to just 60 calories a day and by the time she was 14, she weighed just four-and-a-half stone.
But far from not developing, the eating disorder has left her with varicose veins and the crumbling bones of a 70-year-old woman.
Helen, from Perth, Scotland, explained: "Doctors tell me my bones are so weak that I broke my wrist after a fall when I was 14. If I don't improve, I'll continue to age prematurely.
"I'm sharing my story because I want to warn others that anorexia can take your childhood away."
However she is still unable to bring herself to eat a healthy adult diet.Instead she eats just 750 calories a day; a small bowl of cereal for breakfast, four pieces of fruit at 5pm, then two pieces of toast and a tin of baked beans around 2am - just over half of the recommended amount for a child aged one to three
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