Kumiko Lau Wing-mei has represented Hong Kong at international beauty pageants twice, with thousands of followers who track her glamorous posts on Instagram.

But few know that the 28-year-old struggled with an eating disorder during the Covid-19 pandemic, gaining and losing weight between contests.

At her worst, she would check into a hotel so that nobody would see her eating her way through a pile of junk food.

“I could eat up to three McDonald’s burger sets in one go and keep eating non-stop. Then I would stop eating for one or two days,” she said.

She did that more than once and gained 10kg in a matter of months.