About Famous People With Eating Disorders

Many people see Hollywood stars with their thin bodies and imagine that they're just blessed with natural slenderness. In fact, many of these celebrities suffer from eating disorders. Many keep quiet about it, but some become so sick that the public begins to notice.

History

• Famous people have had eating disorders throughout history. According to one list of sufferers, Franz Kafka and Sylvia Plath wrote of their disorders in their literary works. As long as there has been an ideal of super-skinniness, there have been famous people suffering to achieve that look.
  The advent of the sylph-like beauty became popular in the 1920s, when a more boyish figure came into vogue. The 1930s and 1940s still highlighted a curvaceous figure, albeit not as full as the turn-of-the-century lady. The 1960s saw the waif form take over high-fashion modeling. From that point, magazines and TV glorified women who fit the "Twiggy" look.

Considerations

• Although men and women both suffer from eating disorders, it is women who are under the most pressure to stay thin for professional reasons. However, the male ideal is also shrinking in size, with super-thin men now gracing the runways and fronting famous music groups.
  Women in the industry are under constant stress to adhere to strict guidelines about appearance and weight. It's been noted among newscasters that a male anchor can wear an awful tie and hear nothing about it, but that a female anchor is so scrutinized that a change in hair cut or color brings an avalanche of pubic comment. Therefore, a woman's appearance can sometimes seem to become the property of others. Many talented women can't even get representation because of their weight. A normal-sized woman can find it hard to get an appointment with an agent or get in for an audition without slimming down to a size two or zero. The pursuit of prime parts and status put many in dangerous situation where there's a trade-off between success and health.

Identification

• Some sufferers include singer Janet Jackson, model Elizabeth Hurley, director Amy Heckerling, actress Kate Beckinsale and singer Elton John. Others, such as Victoria Beckham, admit to suffering from disorders in the past.
  Fatalities include singer Karen Carpenter, actress Margaux Hemingway and model Ana Carolina Reston. Many of these people starved themselves slowly over time through anorexia nervosa and bulimia.
  Many stars suffer in secret from eating disorders, gain media attention for their emaciated shapes, then publicly admit to the eating disorder later on. For instance, Mary Kate Olsen lost a lot of weight over a short period of time while also looking depressed and sickly. In the press, Olsen denied the accusations of illness for a long time. Finally, she went to an eating disorders clinic to recover, admitting to long-time problems with food.

Prevention/Solution

• Eating disorders among the famous create an interesting paradox. These personalities know and realize that they're unhealthy; many wish to change their behavior and get help. However, their very thinness brings about fame and publicity, which most stars need to keep their careers going. The publicity is often of two sorts: "Look! She's looks so unhealthy...what's wrong with her?" or "Wow! Look at how beautiful and slender she is in her bathing suit. Ladies, you should try to look like that!" The message is conflicted and misleading.
  In order to curb the rise of eating disorders in the non-famous population, change should come from the top as well. The world of celebrity needs to stop perpetuating unhealthy myths and standards. There are complaints that this is an impossibility, but much can be changed if magazines and the media start taking steps to re-educate the public at large. The modeling industry has taken some steps in fighting eating disorders on the runway, but there's still a long way to go. Stars need to be brave enough to take a stand against unfair standards.

Benefits

• Famous people coming public about their EDs bring the reality of eating disorders to the forefront. Many celebrities take their bad experiences and use them as a vehicle for teaching others another way to live. Of course, it takes courage for someone held up as a role model to admit weakness, but that very action can bring out much needed change for others. Therefore, teaching others about the lose/lose reality of eating disorders is a necessary step to reducing them in the long run.