Madison De La Garza Says Desperate Housewives Role Led to Eating Disorder at 7: 'Just Horrible' - PEOPLE

Madison De La Garza is reflecting on how her young fame resulted in an early eating disorder.

After appearing on Desperate Housewives as a child, the actress, 21, recalled her "first memories of trying to starve myself" at age 7 after reading cruel comments about her appearance online, as she appeared this week on the Heart of the Matter podcast.

"The reactions that I got to my character on Desperate Housewives, it was just shocking," she said. "A lot of people came at it in a way that they were 'concerned for my health.' And I personally believe that that's just not true, that that was a cover-up so that they could just judge a 6-year-old."

Although De La Garza "was never allowed to be on a computer unsupervised at that age," she recalled sneaking online and spending "hours and hours" reading comments on YouTube videos and TMZ.

"I would just spend a crazy amount of time reading through these comments, and most all of them were just atrocious. They said things like they wanted me to die because of what I looked like. It was just horrible," said De La Garza. "And this was when I was 7, 8 years old."

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She added, "Reading comments like that definitely affected my mental health and ultimately played into me developing an eating disorder at a very young age."

De La Garza, who is Demi Lovato's younger half-sister, made her debut on season 4 of the hit ABC series as Juanita Solis, the adopted daughter of Eva Longoria's Gabrielle Solis and her husband Carlos (Ricardo Antonia Chavira).

"The whole joke of my character was that Eva was this thin, beautiful model and her daughter turned out to be quite the opposite. And so, I think she was very aware that this was going to affect me," she said of Longoria, 48.

RELATED VIDEO: Demi Lovato's Mom on Her Family's Mental Health, Addiction Journey: What Do You Say When Your Child Is Paying the Bills?

However, "We never explicitly talked about it, but [Longoria] definitely went out of her way to make me feel like I was pretty and like I was special, and she made me feel like I was family," explained De La Garza. "And if I ever did want to go to her with these things, I absolutely could have."

If you or someone you know is battling an eating disorder, please contact the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) at 1-800-931-2237 or go to NationalEatingDisorders.org.

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Madison De La Garza Says Desperate Housewives Role Led to Eating Disorder at 7: 'Just Horrible' - PEOPLE
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