Diana's Eating Disorders and Health Issues

[rhenae]

I know of Diana having bulimia, but I wonder if she had anorexia too. I admired Diana so much more when she spoke about eating disorders. Mainly eating disorders are in women but there have been more reports now of men having it too. Self-mutilation can be found in eating disorders and depression. People who have done this feels like they are nothing on the inside and want to hurt themselves on the outside. This does not mean that Diana had borderline personality disorder.

 

[love_cc]

I would like to believe that Diana's eating disorder was rooted in her unhappy childhood rather than the start of her engagment with Prince Charles. If Diana married a suitable man, she might be much happier. It was such as tragedy that Charles and Diana got married at the first place. They two have similar weakness in their character but unable to work out the problem. Diana was a very demanding person and she did not trust Prince Charles' determination to make his marriage work. She was too young to understand the complextion of one' love history. Camilla was in the history and no one can deny that. If Diana were matured enough or generous enough, she might learn to accpet many things she disliked in Charles' life.

 

[Squidgy]

...My point was... that at a young age, many of us would have reacted in much the same way.

Well said Sammy! It's hard to believe that before she was even 21, Diana was married, had a baby and was dealing with the mega pressures of being a "superstar". How many of us could have handled it as such a young age? I know at 21, I wasn't even ready to get married, let alone deal with any other major life changing events.

 

[Jackswife]

When it comes to the Charles/Diana marriage there will always be plenty of blame to go around. Charles was not prepared to deal with an emotionally needy, slightly unbalanced , immature young girl, and Diana lacked the maturity and clear-headedness to adapt to her new situation with equanimity. I think after a few years and a lot of difficulties Diana was in some ways able to adjust better but altogether, this marriage was doomed from the start. Maybe if Diana had lived longer and married someone like Hasnat Khan, she could have made herself content with a marriage and left behind some of the glamour and high life to devote her time to social causes instead. Of course, that's if she had lived and if she had come to the realization that she could not play the aggrieved spouse/supermodel of style role infinitely. I hope I don't come across as too harsh on Diana, because I foind some admirable things about her, but there was a lot of drama and problems with her and Charles.

 

[ysbel]

I know of Diana having bulimia, but I wonder if she had anorexia too. I admired Diana so much more when she spoke about eating disorders. Mainly eating disorders are in women but there have been more reports now of men having it too. Self-mutilation can be found in eating disorders and depression. People who have done this feels like they are nothing on the inside and want to hurt themselves on the outside. This does not mean that Diana had borderline personality disorder.

The women that I have known who have eating disorders have shown signs of both anorexia and bulimia but one or the other was predominant.

I think self-mutilation is a totally different phenomenon. I knew of a woman who did harm herself and it caused great concern because her familly had a history of suicide. Luckily she didn't commit suicide but she didn't have an eating disorder.

The women I knew with eating disorders definitely weren't self-mutilating except for their eating disorder which is self-mutilating in itself.

Many people believe that words or actions on the husband's part automatically causes eating disorders in a woman and that's not true. Women react differently according to their family history and their emotional makeup. If they're relatively healthy to start with, their self-esteem will take a dive but they'll recover more easily. If they have a history of eating disorders or other behaviors as Diana said she did, the behaviors will get worse but they were already there to start with.

 

[Lovelydiana]

Diana says in her book Diana: Her True Story IN Her Own Words that her eating disorder happened after the engagement. She belived her bulimia was a result of the marriage not working out. She had gone from pretty much nobody to a world phenomemnon, practically over night. Dhe felt the pressure and she also described that when she did throw up she woul fell so much better afterwards and that she felt it released a lot of tension. Charles adn the Queen did know about it but they didn't know what to do with her. I do belive that Charles did worry but that he wasn't educated on this illness so he had a hard time with why Diana felt she had to do this.
About her sons if they knew or not I am sure they found out anyways if Diana told them or not because it was all over the newspapers and news. I heard that Diana took control of her eating disorder within two to one year before her death. I was also told that people with eating disorders never really get over them.

 

[ghost_night554]

Diana speaks about, dancing, her love life, her pregnancy and trips with Charles in these new letters

'Watching me dance is like watching an elephant': Revealing letters written by Princess Diana to former nanny to be auctioned | Mail Online

 

[iowabelle]

I wonder why Mary Clarke needed to sell these letters.

And isn't it interesting that Diana compares herself to an elephant while dancing? I wonder if that comment isn't sypmtomatic of her eating disorder.

 

[Mermaid1962]

Or it's a typical aristocratic self-deprecating remark. That was my first thought. But you could be right, iowabelle.

 

[Fashionista100]

I think the elephant remark may be due to her height.

 

[Madame Royale]

I think your right on the money, jowabelle. It isn't the first time I've heard someone who's suffered an eating dissorder refer to themselves as an 'elephant'. To see only what the dissorder lets you see, and not what what is actually so...that Diana should have viewed herself as overweight and so associated herself with objects or creatures on a large scale was certainly the dissorder talking.

Having myself suffered an eating disorder during my teenage years, I acknowledge her statement as an admission of self loathing. I felt it too, though am glade to say I am since very well covered.

Or it's a typical aristocratic self-deprecating remark.

I do not think so in the slightest.

 

[Mermaid1962]

Re the artistocratic remark. Why don't you think so? From what I've seen in interviews with aristocrats and Royals, they seem to go out of their way to put themselves down or appear humble in spite of their station.

 

[Lady Ann]

And isn't it interesting that Diana compares herself to an elephant while dancing? I wonder if that comment isn't sypmtomatic of her eating disorder.

I wasn't sure if Diana ever said her eating disorder started when she was a teen. To my knowlage "which might not be as vast as some of yours" she always made refrence her honey moon as the start of her disorder.
This letter was said to be written in 1978 way before that time. I may be mistaken scince they said the letters were written between 1978-1982. I may have persumed this to be any earlier letter. ( Just thought I read it that way in on of the papers.)

 

[GillW]

Diana apparently had no prior problems with her weight until during her engagement, when reportedly Charles made a comment to her about being "chubby". She visibly & rapidly lost a lot of weight prompted by that remark - even the Emmanuels said that every time she went for a wedding dress fitting they had to take it in more & more.

If you compare an engagement photo with the ones taken at the final wedding rehearsal, (about 3 months later) she had lost many pounds in weight. I don't doubt that pre-wedding nerves also played a part, but I've never read that there were any problems prior to that.

http://legacyeditorial.gettyimages.com/source/search/details_pop.aspx?iid=52113953&cdi=0

http://legacyeditorial.gettyimages.com/source/search/details_pop.aspx?iid=52113959&cdi=0

 

[Elspeth]

Some of her biographies have stated that she started to have problems with eating disorders several years before she met Charles. As with so many other aspects of Diana's life, I suppose it depends which version a person decides to believe.

 

[Lady Ann]

...reportedly Charles made a comment to her about being "chubby".

You are right!! laterI was thinking about that & remenbered her stating that he had put his hand on her waist and said a bit chubby here right!!!
I also remenber reading somewhere that she was a nightmare for the dress makers having to take in the dress several times before the wedding. Thanks for the pics too. I never notice how much she really lost... the dress was very puffy ...

 

[GillW]

Some of her biographies have stated that she started to have problems with eating disorders several years before she met Charles. As with so many other aspects of Diana's life, I suppose it depends which version a person decides to believe.

Indeed it does. However, amongst all the pictures that have come to public notice of the young Diana (at any age) I don't recall a single one showing her looking very thin, in the way she did at several times after her engagement and marriage. Slim, yes, but in a normal healthy way and not ever "skinny".

 

[Mermaid1962]

I think that it would have been unusual for Diana not to have been conscious of her appearance even as a teenager. I was a teenager as well during mid-seventies to early 80s, and I remember how extreme thin-ness was being pushed even in Seventeen Magazine at the time. But there's quite a stretch between being self-conscious about one's weight and having an eating disorder, as everyone knows. I remember Diana talking about "pigging out" at boarding school in Her True Story, but she doesn't say anything about purging all that food.

 

[Skydragon]

Some of her biographies have stated that she started to have problems with eating disorders several years before she met Charles. As with so many other aspects of Diana's life, I suppose it depends which version a person decides to believe.

Didn't she say that she copied her big sister with the induced vomiting, before she started seeing Charles?

 

[Elspeth]

I think that was in Sarah Bradford's biography but I'd have to check to be certain.

 

[TheTruth]

Yes, I think various sources stated it. I remember reading she considered Sarah as a model but I doubt that's a plausible reason to become anorexic ; it's an accumulation of many factors.

 

[Skydragon]

I don't know, lots of girls start because they see a friend or sister losing weight this way and then it takes over their lives (so to speak).

 

[Roslyn]

Bradford says (page 39, paperback) that years after her sister's period of anorexia and bulimia, "Diana told patients at the Priory, a private clinic treating addictions on the outskirts of London, that she had first had symptoms of bulimia in the mid-seventies, attributing it to Sarah's experience: 'It started because Sarah was anorexic and I idolized her so much that I wanted to be like her'. Bradford goes on to say that if that was so, it did not affect her seriously because though Sarah had a severe problem and was taken to hospital, photos of Diana at the time showed no signs whatever of serious slimming.

From a completely lay point of view, it does seem to show a family susceptibility to dealing with stress in a certain way, and an example to follow.

 

[TheTruth]

I don't know, lots of girls start because they see a friend or sister losing weight this way and then it takes over their lives (so to speak).

I agree but I don't know if their motivation only comes from that. You can have Janis Joplin for idol and not be keen on drugs
There are many ways of becoming anorexic but every way leads to a deep psychological problem that keeps making you see a seriously altered image of yourself. So maybe at first she copied her sister but then, I believe other factors grafted to the initial reason and turned it into a vicious circle, even if she no longer idolized Sarah.

 

[ysbel]

A high school friend had eating disorders and she was told by the doctors that it is physical as well as psychological and it can run in families. Her own experience was with both bulimia and anorexia although she was mostly anorexic.

As far as I know from what she told me, women just don't suddenly get an eating disorder and families can miss the symptoms especially if the girl is quiet.

We were both greatly interested in the life of Karen Carpenter who really suffered from it. From what I remember, seeing herself on television which makes you look 10 pounds heavier put Karen in a tailspin and she started dieting fanatically. Some signs were there before but they really came out when she and Richard became famous.

 

[sirhon11234]

Karen's death was so tragic, at the time of death in 1983, I beleive Anorexia wasn't really known to the general public and she didn't have the treatment that is avaliable today. In an interview her brother said a person asked him back in the late 70s if Karen had cancer because she was gaunt looking.

Diana's eating disorder wasn't as bad as Karen's but it could have gotten there if she did not receive treatment. On wiki (not really reliable) I read that she was inspired by Karen to stop her disorder.

 

[Incas]

If she said that, it wasn't close to truthfulnss. Bulimia was supposedly the cause for her public fainting during Expo 86. I believe it was the Andrew Morton ghost-bio that said she was getting professional treatment in the early 90's. And she was still reported to have bulimic episodes as late as her Panorama piece.

 

[Skydragon]

A high school friend had eating disorders and she was told by the doctors that it is physical as well as psychological...

A very good friend has said a similar thing, one of her school friends suddenly started to lose a bit of weight and everyone put it down to her shooting up in height. She died weighing a mere 3 stone something, because in those days there was no diagnosis, let alone treatments available.

 

[TheTruth]

I have a very good friend who suffered for 3 years of anorexia/bulimia. It all started because she wanted to go on a diet, to lose a bit of weight (she found herself plump although she wasn't at all; at least, not for me.) Then she realized that not eating would accelerate the process and she didn't feel the secondary effects of not eating, at first. Anorexia began for her; she couldn't eat anymore so when she saw how weak she had become, she had some bulimia crisis which directly lead her to the hospital for 2 months. She only attended 3 months of a school year and she only started coming back regularly to school this year.
It's always terrible to see these girls suffering of this disease; they are prisoners of their mind which keeps showing them a bad picture of themselves. I think psychological problems as such are the hardest ones to get rid of.

 

[pinkie40]

I wonder if Diana's eating disorder ever affected Prince William or Harry or the parenting thereof?