Celebrities
with Eating Disorders
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Alexandra Paul |
Find a celebrity by alphabet (first name)
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Alanis Morissette
Alexandra PaulDear Leah, I am thrilled to hear about your progress - that is so wonderful. Life without bingeing and purging is like having a huge weight taken off your shoulders, no pun intended, and the more balanced you get around food, the better your life will be, I promise. It is important to understand WHY you turn to food in an unhealthy way so that you won’t return to your eating disorder when life gets stressful. Therapy is very good at helping us understand ourselves and at giving us other tools to deal with life’s challenges. I also recommend a 12 Step Program (Overeaters Anonymous, which deals with all eating disorders, really helped me. Go to www.oa.org to find meeting near you) if you want the support of others who understand intimately what you are going through. Congratulations on your courage in making this change in your life. It is never easy, but it is definitely worth it! Thank you so much for the update, Alexandra |
Alexis Bellino
Real Housewives of Orange County Alexis Bellino admitted that she has struggled with eating disorders since the age of 12.
Alexis said her parents' divorce helped start her troubled relationship with food.
"Looking back, I think it was my way of controlling something at a time when everything else in my life was out of my control," said Alexis in an interview with Life & Style magazine.
In college, Alexis started throwing up in order to gain more control over her weight. She would continue this behavior until she sought help in 2002.
Though Alexis says her eating habits aren't as extreme as they were when she was younger, she admits to remaining obsessed with her weight. On a typical day, Alexis eats fewer than 900 calories.
"It's not like I'm healed," she explained. "This haunts me."
Ally Sheedy
Actress Ally Sheedy (best known for her role in the 1985 hit "The Breakfast Club") struggled with anorexia and bulimia in the past and at one point also was addicted to pain killer medications. At the young age of six, Sheedy was already established as a dancer with the American Ballet Theatre where she stayed until she was fourteen. Sheedy gave up dancing at the age of fourteen after developing an eating disorder, and tiring of the strict diets and starvation required of dancers.
Amanda Beard
U.S. swimmer and seven-time Olympic medal winner Amanda Beard recently revealed her 12-year private struggle with eating disorders and self-mutilation.
"I did a good job of putting on a front: 'Life is perfect. Everything's fun.' When I'd go home, it was just darkness," Amanda told People magazine.
Amanda said her problems with food came to a head following a growth spurt during her teenage years. Gaining 25 pounds and growing eight inches in a short period time disoriented Amanda, negatively affecting her performance in swim competitions and prompting commentators to call her fat and washed up. Amanda turned to extreme dieting as a means of gaining control over her developing body and swim career and self-harm to combat feelings of depression.
At the urging of her now-husband Sasha Brown, Amanda sought help for her eating disorder and self-mutilation. Through therapy and depression medication, Amanda gained a healthier perspective on life.
Amy Heckerling
In high school, she was anorexic. And, more recently, she said, "I had an eating disorder because I was going through something that was depressing me. And I didn't feel like eating. It wasn't that I thought I'd look cuter and be more popular. That certainly was long gone. I come from a family of heavy women, so I've always been really scared."
Amy Winehouse
Amy confesses that she’s struggled with disordered eating since 2004. Her confession was made after pictures were published of her looking very thin, opposed to her naturally curvy figure. She is firm that she is in recovery but is still insecure.
“I went through every eating disorder you can have. A little bit of anorexia, a little bit of bulimia,” she said, “I’m not totally okay now but I don’t think any woman is.”
"I've had a flirtation with every eating disorder there is, I wouldn’t tie myself down to one, and then i realise that I have to eat and I will fatten myself up and put on half a stone in a week, because I’m good like that."
The tabloid News of the World reported that Whitehouse and 
her husband Fielder-Civi,l cut their arms together. Spin.com reports that the couple "have matching crisscross scars and scratches up and down their left arms," though says the marks are "presumably from a misbehaving house cat."
Amy Winehouse shocked a journalist from Spin Magazine when she started to carve the words "I Love Blake" into her own stomach during an interview.
"I went through every eating disorder you can have. A little bit of anorexia, a little bit of bulimia," she said. "I'm not totally OK now but I don't think any woman is." Her confession comes after recent pictures show the singer looking gaunt and very thin. According to the Daily Mirror, her record label, Island Records, has told her to cut back on her drinking. This has been revealed after Amy turned up to The Charlotte Church Show last week bleary-eyed and slurring her words. The 23-year-old has admitted to drinking excessively in the past due to a painful split with an ex-boyfriend. An inside source told the Daily Mirror: "We're worried that she's going off the rails."
Ana Carolina Reston
She weighed only 88 pounds and died at 21 because of generalized infection as a result of anorexia.
"Take care for your children because their loss is irreparable," Reston's mother, Miriam, told the O Globo newspaper. "Nothing can make the pain go away. No money in the world is worth the life of your child."
The model's cousin, Dani Grimaldi, told the Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper that Reston also battled bulimia.
It is always heartbreaking to me when somebody dies as the result of not getting treatment for an eating disoder. Especially, at the young age of 21. This is also why I am strongly against pro-ana websites. Those who promote pro-anorexia do not understand how serious anorexia can be. It is an eating disorder that needs to be taken serious.
Andrea Gruber
Metropolitan opera star Andrea Gruber is svelte and sober after decades of disordered eating and substance abuse because she didn’t want a huge sick body anymore after her experience at a New York firehouse during the 9/11 attack on America.
Andrea Marcovicci
Andrea Marcovicci is a cabaret singer. "I do have a history with anorexia. I had a history with almost every kind of single trouble that you can have in a woman’s life. I am quite surprised I am still here, because of the difficulties that I have had to undergo and overcome. My two or so years with anorexia was like going deaf and blind, arguably the worst time in my life, and it basically sprang out of nowhere. People don’t have much sympathy for it, they think it is related to some sort of vanity."
Anna Freud
(Sigmund Freud's daughter), who was also a psychotherapist, documented that she struggled with anorexia when she was younger. Anna did not have a very close bond with her mother and had difficulties getting along with her siblings, specifically with her sister Sophie Freud. Sophie, who was the prettiest child, represented a threat in the struggle for the affection of their father. Apart from this rivalry between the two sisters, Anna had some other difficulties growing up. Out of correspondence between father and daughter, it can be concluded today that Anna suffered from a depression which caused eating disorders.
Anne Murray's daughter-Dawn Langstroth
For years, people have associated Anne Murray with her satin voice and hit songs. But last week in People magazine, Anne revealed a surprising side of herself — one that eight million families can identify with. Anne's daughter is recovering from anorexia nervosa.
Though Anne had noticed some eating problems while Dawn was growing up, she attributed them to typical teenage behavior. Even when Dawn's eating habits became more unusual, it was difficult to pin down their source. "I didn't know what to do," Anne confessed. "She would say, 'I'm fine.' She would eat while I was at home. She always put on a good face, but inside she was dying. She's a great actress."
Oprah interview
Anne Sexton
American poet Anne Sexton (1928-1974), who was sexually abused in childhood and committed suicide at the age of 46, suffered from anorexia and depression. Anne Sexton spent years locked in a depression, attempting suicide nine times before she succeeded. She manages to put words to feelings no one else can explain in her poetry.
Ashlee Simpson (musician)
Sister of singer and actress Jessica Simpson has publicly admitted that she battled with an eating disorder during her pre-teen years. "I was around a lot of girls with eating disorders." Simpson says she learned a lesson from the experience and has learned to love her body."I think I have good curves, and they're womanly," she says. "I hate it when girls lose their curves. "I think it's sexy not to be a bone and it's sad when people get too weight-conscious and don't look in the mirror and see themselves as being as beautiful as they are."
Audrey Hepburn
Actress Audrey Hepburn struggled with anorexia and depression - which was unknown to the public during her career. She was known to lose weight under pressure and to be "strange" about food. Rumor has it that current actresses are being "harassed" by the media who points to Audrey as an example of a thin woman without an eating disorder, but that was NOT the case!
