A 21-YEAR-OLD who binge ate after being bullied is hoping to inspire other people after dropping five stone and starting a social media campaign.

Jen Altree, from Catterick Garrison, began over-eating in her final year at school in a bid to block out her problems when she began to experience bullying.

“I got into a really bad habit of eating and I just kept putting weight on,” she said.

“I had such a bad relationship with food and didn’t enjoy eating healthily.”

The 21-year-old, who is a barmaid by night and assistant manager by day, also used to dread going on holiday and never wanted to wear a bikini.

“I didn’t want anyone seeing my body, not even my own family.

"I was so self-conscious that I never even went out with my friends.”

Jen, who weighed 14-stone at her heaviest in 2014, even had people comment on her weight, which made her want to eat even more.

When all her friends were going out and looking nice, Jen didn’t want to do anything, but it motivated her to lose weight.

“I don’t think there’s anything nicer than when you see someone after a long time and they tell you that you look really nice and I knew I wanted that.”

She began training at her local Xercise4Less gym in Darlington and has been seeing a significant difference after training for nearly a year.

She also changed her diet, swapped the crisps and chocolates she snacked on all day for fruit and vegetables and Greggs breakfasts for healthy cereals.

“At my biggest I was 14 stone but now I weigh 9st 4lbs and fit into a size 8 or 10,” she said.

Now, Jen wants to lower her body-weight and continue to increase her muscle mass.

She believes social media images contribute to many women feeling an expectation to be a certain size and says part of her drive to lose weight was driven by this.

However, Jen posts images of her stretchmarks and cellulite to promote realistic images of beauty on social media and counter the Photoshopped and heavily edited images of beauty many Instagram accounts and magazines use.

Using the hashtag #KeepingItReal she shares her message that you can’t look great all the time.

Jen said: “I started the hashtag #KeepingItReal where I can post images of my stretchmarks and cellulite, so I can promote the fact that not everyone on social media looks amazing all the time.”