Courtney Grimshaw at the height of her teenage anorexia, and her and her sister at a healthy weight now.
SIBLING rivalry is to be expected in every family, but two sisters pushed it to the brink when they developed anorexia because of their quest to be skinnier than the other.
WARNING: Triggering images below
Courtney Grimshaw, now 24, was just 12 when she started to restrict her eating to be thinner than her “popular” older sister, Rebecca — then 14.
Courtney Grimshaw pushed her body to the limit in an attempt to lose weight.Source:Getty Images
Rebecca used to tease her younger sister about her weight, calling her a “fat a**” and a “fat pig”, with Courtney eventually becoming anorexic.
Desperate Courtney, who weighed a healthy 58kg before losing weight, shed 25kg in the space of a year.
In a dangerous competition to become the slimmest, the Californian sisters exercised compulsively for hours every day and dropped their calorie intake to dangerous levels.
Courtney pushed her body to its limits after being teased by her sister.Source:Getty Images
Before long, skeletal Courtney had pushed her body to its limits, and the girls were only eating 350 calories a day.
Courtney said: “I planned on losing three kilos but it got to the point where Becky and I were living on next to nothing.
“We were both competing to be the skinnier sister. Becky realised that what we were doing was dangerous but I was too far gone — all I could think about was losing more weight.”
Courtney lost an alarming amount of weight.Source:Getty Images
Reflecting on her dangerous obsession, Courtney, now 24, said: “Becky would tease me for being chubby and call me a fat pig. She made me feel really horrible about myself.
“I always wanted to be like her. She was really pretty, she always had boys all over her, all of my guy friends liked her — they thought she was cool.”
While the competition to lose weight made the girls bond at first, things quickly got out of hand and they found themselves exercising by playing intense six-hour tennis matches every day, leaving them weak and exhausted.
Eating only cereal and dry bread, weight started to fall off the two girls, but Courtney refused to stop dieting — even as she hit a deadly 32kg.
Older sister Rebecca realised the damage she was doing to her body when she dropped from 57kg to a tiny 41kg, prompting her to stop the intense weight loss regimen and eventually return to a healthy weight.
Courtney lived with her two siblings in Temecula, California.Source:Getty Images
But for Courtney, the competition didn’t matter anymore — all she cared about was losing more weight.
She said: “When I looked in the mirror all I could see was fat. I was disgusted with my body.
“It got to the point where I was exercising six hours a day and eating next to nothing. We rarely ate together as a family so my parents had no idea what was going on.”
At age 15, Courtney’s hair was falling out and her skin became sallow, prompting Becky to start regretting the sick competition she had started.
Becky, now a 26-year-old dog sitter said: “It was like all of a sudden she had went from outrageously skinny to holocaust survivor.
“At the time I was a little brat and me and my brother would call Courtney fat and we would pick on her and a couple of years into her anorexia I was tortured by that.
“The damage was done and I hadn’t realised what I was doing at the time. For a long time I did blame myself and I still do.”
The sisters are now a healthier weight.Source:Getty Images
Courtney said: “She saw me go into a downward spiral knowing it was her fault.
“She would lie in my bed at night making sure I was still breathing, I really was just skin and bone.
“It was hard for me to accept her help because I did blame her for what had happened to me.”
By the time Courtney hit 16, she was down to a life-threatening 32kg, causing worried school staff to contact her parents and threaten that child protection services would admit her to hospital if she kept on refusing to eat.
Eventually, under the care of a doctor and dietitian, Courtney began to gain weight, but still suffered from self-confidence issues.
After a series of booze-fuelled incidents, Courtney was sent to rehab at 17, leading to her gradually getting her life back on track.
Today, with the sisters closer than ever, Courtney hopes that her story will serve as a warning to other teenagers with body issues.
Now 24 and at a healthy weight, Courtney has actually forgiven her sister, and has actually ambitions of going back to school.
She added: “Without her my anorexia and addiction wouldn’t have happened but without her I wouldn’t have been able to help people and I’m proud to be that triumph story.
“I would go through all that torment all over again to make sure that other people get help.”
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