A 17-year-old 'Modern Family' star just got cosmetic surgery because she was tired of being 'treated like an object'

Ariel Winter, 17, has grown up in the public eye. When she was 11, she was cast as Alex Dunphy on ABC's "Modern Family." At the time, she looked like an ordinary pre-teen:

Getty Images/Frazer Harrison

But a few years later, she matured and suddenly looked much older than her age. "I was 15 years old with [size] F [breasts], Winter told Glamour's Jessica Radloff. "How do you navigate that?"

Getty Images/Ethan Miller

Ariel Winter plays Alex on ABC's "Modern Family."

"I remember being in my sister's wedding and being so flat and thinking, 'I just wish I could grow boobs!' And then overnight I did," Winter said in the interview. "But then they kept growing and growing and growing, and it didn't seem like they were going to stop."

Winter says her new image attracted a lot of unwanted attention from the media. Instead of focusing on her career, press outlets started commenting on her outfits and chest size.

"It made me feel really uncomfortable because as women in the industry, we are totally over sexualized and treated like objects.

As women in the industry, we are totally over sexualized and treated like objects

Every article that has to do with me on a red carpet always had to do with 'Ariel Winter's Crazy Cleavage!' Or 'Ariel Winter Shows Huge Boobs At An Event!' That's all people would recognize me by, not, "Oh, she does great work on 'Modern Family.'"

Even though she appeared confident on the red carpet, Winter says finding good-fitting clothes was always a struggle, her image kept her from being cast in age-appropriate roles, and she felt self-conscious.

"I'm an actress, [acting confident is] what we do," she told the magazine. "But on the inside, I wasn't feeling so happy."

In June, Winter decided to do something about her body image and got breast reduction surgery.

Now that Winter has gone down a few sizes, she says she feels like she looks the way she was always "supposed to." And she hopes her decision will influence other young girls with similar confidence issues.

"It's something that I did to better my life and better my health and I think that that can benefit a lot of young girls," she tells Glamour. "I have felt more happy with myself than I ever have."