Julie Bowen Reflects on Living with Eating Disorder as a Teen: 'It Was a Coping Mechanism'

Julie Bowen is opening up about having an eating disorder when she was a teenager.

The Modern Family alum, 52, was a guest on Thursday's airing of The Tamron Hall Show and reflected on what she believes triggered the condition.

"You know, it's funny because I have three sons, and they're all so different," she told the Emmy-winning talk show host. "But I see one of them is very similar to me, and I see him always trying to color inside the lines and get the A+."

Bowen shares son Oliver, 15, and twin sons John and Gustav, 13, with her ex-husband Scott Phillips.

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She continued, "And I think [as a teen] I interpreted being messy or making mistakes or having an ass or like fat coming out of the top of your jeans [as] a symbol that you couldn't contain yourself. That you were too much, and that to be good meant staying inside the lines — literally and figuratively. Keeping it tight."

"And that's my attitude: tight," she explained. "And by the way, that is not fun. It's not a fun way to live."

At the time, she said, she was "struggling" with the changes and hormones that came along with puberty and "not liking that feeling of changing."

Bowen added that, although her sons are "aren't afraid" of their changing bodies, her life was much different when she was younger.

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When she was growing up, she said, "We didn't talk about anything, and it just sort of felt like... dirty. And I realized, when you're really starving, you don't have any feelings. It's kind of amazing. The body goes, 'We don't have time for that.' So I think it was a coping mechanism."

Also during her appearance, she recalled being body-shamed months after giving birth to her twins.

"I was lucky enough to get a little bit of fame and recognition before everybody had a cell phone in their pocket and a camera all the time," she told Hall. "I had my twins in 2009, and I was in Hawaii shooting Modern Family. It was less than a year later, and I still had like the baby gunk."

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At the time, she had also been trying to breastfeed after welcoming John and Gustav nine months prior.

"I was working and breastfeeding, and I jumped in the ocean with my husband at the time wearing a bikini — no one was around — and by the time we got up to the room, there had been paparazzi like in the rocks hidden away, and it was the nastiest. Like, 'What is wrong with her? This is disgusting.' People circling my belly and my boobs and [saying], 'This is nasty.' "

Added Bowen: "I felt like I had done something wrong. Like somebody took a picture of you in your most private moment. And [the paparazzi] had no idea my body just did something f------ amazing."

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.