Demi Lovato: 'I would be dead if I didn't seek help'

Demi Lovato fears she would have died if she hadn't sought help at the height of her breakdown.

The singer/actress enrolled in rehab late last year (10) to battle a number of problems, including an eating disorder and self-harming, and she is now happy, healthy and back at work.

Lovato is convinced the treatment saved her life and she is grateful she sought help when she did.

She tells TV host Ellen DeGeneres, "I went from being at the highlight of my career - so many things were going great in my life and then all of the sudden (sic) my personal life just went down at crazy speeds. I had a negative breakdown and it changed my life forever, but I'm glad that it did, because if I had never gone into the treatment... I don't know if, one, I'd even be sitting here today. Two, if I'd be alive today."

Lovato also hopes her new fuller figure will be an inspiration to young girls who are used to seeing skinny models gracing the covers of fashion magazines.

She adds, "One of the reasons why I became so outspoken when I decided to come out of treatment and talk about my issues was because when I grew up I was dealing with the pressures to be thin. It was the time in the tabloids when very, very skinny girls were on the cover of every magazine and that's what I was looking up to. That's what I had to idolise.

"I don¹t want that for young girls to idolise... It¹s very unhealthy. There was nobody out there for me to look at and say, maybe this is unhealthy. Maybe starving myself isn't the answer. So I want to be that for a 13-year-old girl at home deciding whether or not to eat dinner, or an 18-year-old deciding whether or not to keep her breakfast down. There needs to be a role model out there, and for the first time in my life, I actually feel like one."

The Ellen DeGeneres Show featuring Lovato is due to air on Tuesday (20Sep11).