BEN AFFLECK's sexy leading lady KATE BECKINSALE battled a deadly eating disorder as a troubled teenage girl. The British beauty, who plays Affleck's sweetheart in the upcoming movie epic PEARL HARBOR (2001), was once a worryingly thin girl because of her battle with anorexia nervosa. A former classmate says, "She was often absent from school, wore baggy clothes and was very thin. " Kate, 27, believes her problem was a mental collapse triggered by earlier tragedies. When she was just six, her actor father RICHARD died of a heart attack at the age of 31. Three years later, Kate, an only child, suddenly had to share a house with other children when her mother moved in with a director who had four sons and a daughter. Kate adds, "I did mind. I felt invaded. " In her teen hears, she began showing signs of the disorder. She explains, "Anorexia is a breakdown. If something traumatic happens to a child when they're very young, they pick something safer to worry about. " Kate, who has a two-year-old daughter with British actor MICHAEL SHEEN, was cured of her condition when after receiving almost five years of therapist treatment

Source: WENN