by Reena Daruwalla, guest writer for Nancy Hayssen.com

While the statistic of 5 to 7% American women having eating disorders is a well known one, what is also fairly well known is the fact that this disorder born out of an obsession to be thin afflicts celebrities as well. Many celebrities have suffered from all kinds of eating disorders pursuant to the pressure to be thin. The mortality rate for those diagnosed with anorexia nervosa is approximately 6%—the highest of any mental illness—with roughly half of those due to suicide. This is another shocking statistic. Shocking and scary!

Princess Diana: Perhaps one of the most public and well documented cases of the eating disorder Bulimia was and her struggle with the eating disorder. She struggled with the disorder most of her married life, a manifestation of her inner struggles and as a result of the difficulties in her marriage.

Karen Carpenter: Hers was the first well known case of celebrity Anorexia Nervosa; it was a little known disease at the time. The singer/song writer eventually died from complications related to recovering from the illness at the age of 32, in 1983. The official cause of her death was “heartbeat irregularities brought on by chemical imbalances associated with anorexia nervosa.”

Ana Carolina Reston& Luisel Ramos : Reston was a Brazilian model who weighed only 88 pounds (40 kilos), died at 21 because of generalized infection as a result of anorexia. Luisel Ramos died of heart failure caused by anorexia nervosa while participating in a fashion show during Fashion Week in Montevideo, Uruguay. Ramos had felt ill after walking the runway and subsequently fainted on her way back to the dressing room. Luisel’s 18-year-old sister Eliana Ramos, also a model, died at her grandparents’ home in Montevideo of an apparent heart attack, believed to be related to malnutrition.

“Take care for your children because their loss is irreparable,” Ana Carolina 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.”