Friday 10th February 2012 by Holly Frith | Photos by WENN.com

Tags: Lady Gaga

Lady GaGa has opened up about her battle with bulimia, revealing that she used to make herself sick in a bid to look like "a skinny ballerina."

The singer spoke her eating disorder at a conference hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger's estranged wife Maria Shriver.

"It's easier for me to talk about it now because I don't do it anymore. I used to throw up all the time in high school,'' Gaga said.

"Bulimia made my voice bad so I had to stop. The acid on your vocal cords it's very bad. But for those of you who don't sing, you maybe don't have that excuse until it's too late. It's very dangerous."

She added: "I wanted to be a skinny little ballerina but I was a voluptuous little Italian girl whose dad had meatballs on the table every night.

"I used to come home and say, 'Dad, why do you always give us this food? I need to be thin'. And he'd say, 'Eat your spaghetti'."

Gaga also criticised magazines and music video makers for photoshoping her body, stating: "Every video I'm in, every magazine cover, they stretch you, they make you perfect. It's not real life."

"I'm gonna say this about girls. The dieting wars have got to stop. Everyone just knock it off! Because at the end of the day, it's affecting kids your age. And it's making girls sick.

"It's really hard. But you've got to talk to somebody about it. I'm encouraging you to know what you're worth."

She concluded: "And know that no matter who has more money in class, who has more stuff, who has a country house nobody is worth more than anybody else."

Meanwhile, Lady Gaga has unveiled dates for her forthcoming 'Born This Way Ball' tour, set to take place later this year.

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