2007-08-08 20:04:14 · 6 answers · asked by B Am 1 in Entertainment & Music ➔ Celebrities
From what I have read about her, she was not. I worked at a library for a long time, and there were a whole slew of biographies about her after she died, and I read several of them.
She was naturally tall and slender, or at least tall for a European woman (5'7"), and she originally trained to be a ballerina. She lived in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation, and as the war progressed and things got worse for the Nazis, they pretty much raided the Dutch food supplies, leaving very little for the civilians. She developed health problems after that, which is not uncommon in women who suffer starvation, especially when it is during the critical teenage years, which is when it was for her. She had anemia and respiratory problems, as well as some other health issues brought on by malnutrition, and they dogged her the rest of her life. She was married twice, and was pregnant many times, but only had two children--the rest of her pregnancies all ended in miscarriages, which is also common for women who have suffered from inadequate nutrition. One of the doctors who treated her for her cancer before she died noted that she had suffered from poor health her whole life, including a weakened immune system, and that he felt it was due to the malnutrition when she was growing up. He had seen the same groups of problems in other women who were teens in occupied Europe, and who did not get enough to eat during those important formative years.
There was something else I read, an entirely different book, at about the same time I read about her, and it made me wonder about her and her weight. It was related in one of the books that once the Netherlands was liberated, and the Red Cross was able to get food in to people, Miss Hepburn got really, really sick from eating too much at one time. The other book I read talked about eating problems for people who had been in concentration camps or in other situations where they suffered from starvation or malnutrition. One of the things the book said was that for many people (and this was very common when the concentration camps were liberated), getting sick from eating, and also seeing people die from eating (which was extremely common) caused a deep-seated mental problem with food. It is not anorexia, and is not related to anorexia in any way, but it does manifest as a fear of food. The people don't fear eating because they fear gaining weight--they fear eating because they associate it with getting sick or dying. There have been plenty of case studies of both men and women who were not able to return to normal eating habits after going through that type of ordeal--usually, they eat just a bit of what is on their plates. Since that type of food phobia is also related to a fear that they won't have enough food later on, and that they should "save" some for later, I think it is entirely possible that she may have had that type of relationship with food as a result of what happened to her when she was young. The book said it is entirely separate from anorexia, and has psychological roots in an entirely different experience and mind set, but it did make me wonder if that's why she was so thin her entire life. Having difficulty eating, coupled with the residual health problems, would have made it very difficult for her to gain weight.
Any way you look at it, however, she was a kind and generous woman. She was very beautiful on the outside, but she was even more beautiful inside.
2007-08-08 20:45:03 · answer #1 · answered by Bronwen 7 · 13⤊ 1⤋
Audrey Hepburn Eating Disorder
2016-12-10 14:43:20 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm not sure if she was ever diagnosed as anorexic or not. I did read on her Wikipedia biography that she felt she was ugly and mentioned being "too fat" as one reason she felt she was ugly. I think mainly she was thin because she lived in a concentration camp from age 10 to 15 and was malnourished. She was also anemic. She lost weight probably due to some depression after she was separated from one of her husbands. She met her next boyfriend on a cruise and he happened to be a psychiatrist. Anyway, you can read up and decide for yourself, but I think if she'd ever been diagnosed as anorexic, Wikipedia would have mentioned it.
2007-08-08 20:29:27 · answer #3 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hmmm, interesting. I know she struggled with her weight most of her life because for a short while she lived in a concentration camp (or something). Whether that made her anorexic or what the story was, I do not know. She was a bean pole, and very beautiful though.
2007-08-08 20:06:44 · answer #4 · answered by shrink 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
She sure looks like it, but in her hay day [1950-70] nobody knew much about eating disorders.
2007-08-09 06:16:31 · answer #5 · answered by Pinyon 7 · 2⤊ 2⤋
Who knows but she'd have made a good pull through for a 303.....
2007-08-08 20:07:02 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 3⤋
NO.... Audrey Hepburn did not have an eating disorder.
She was not anorexic!!!!!!!!! So leave it alone.... And leave her rest in peace....!!!!!
2007-08-08 21:21:33 · answer #7 · answered by Greer 5 · 4⤊ 5⤋
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audrey_Hepburn- Give that a try.
2007-08-08 20:34:45 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
yes,she was anorexic.
2007-08-08 20:09:10 · answer #9 · answered by harold b 3 · 3⤊ 6⤋
YES.
2007-08-09 00:39:14 · answer #10 · answered by , 7 · 1⤊ 6⤋